HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 461 
tomology ; which, from the maxilla being principally 
employed to characterize the Classes or rather Orders, 
may be called the Maxillary System. De Geer, in- 
deed, as we have seen above, had, in the majority of his 
Classes, to the organs of flight added the parts of the 
mouth : but Fabricius pursued the idea much further, 
and made the Trophi*, or Instrumenta Cibaria as he 
called them, the sole corner-stone of his whole super- 
structure. Though nothing seems to have been further 
from his intention than to follow Nature, since he com- 
plains that Linne by following her too closely had lost 
the Ariadnean thread of system 13 , yet it is singular that, 
by building upon this seemingly narrow foundation, he 
has furnished a clue, by the due use of which, in- 
stead of deserting her, his successors have been enabled 
with more certainty to extricate her groups : since the 
parts in question being intimately connected with the 
functions and economy of these animals, where they 
differ materially, indicate a corresponding difference in 
their character and station. 
The jirst outline of his System, I believe, appeared in 
his Systema Entomologies published in 1775; and the last* 
in his Supplement to his Ento?nologia Systematica in 1798. 
In this the series and characters of his Classes (for so, 
after De Geer, he denominates his primary groups) were 
as follows : — 
# 
1. Eleutherata c . (Coleoptera L.) Maxilla naked, 
free, palpigerous. 
a Vol. III. p. 416. 
b Philos. Entomolog. vi. §. 2. Syst. Ent. Prolegom. 
c From EAfv^^o,', Free. 
