6 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



I he himself was its great upholder and restorer. 

 Hear his own words : *^ Vidi vacillantem entomo^ 

 logiam, classes ludicras, genera falsa, species haud 

 determinatas, et nomina scppius ahsurda{h)" 



If w^e compare the characters of the Linnean 

 classes, with those of Fabricius, we shall find the 

 former, simple, obvious, applicable, with few ex- 

 ceptions, to all the genera that compose each, and 

 distinguished by a significant name; while those 

 of the latter are seldom to be detected without 

 dissecting the insect ; and, if 1 may be allowed to 

 form a judgment from the Hymenoptera class, not 

 universally applicable ; with a name assigned to 

 each barbarous, ill-constructed, and far from sig- 

 nificant. To give up the classical, harmonious, 

 and connected names of the Linnean classes, for 

 such barbarisms, as Eleuterata, Ulonata, Synistata, 

 Piezata, Odonata, Mitosata, Polygonata, Kleistag 

 natha, Exochnata, &c. is what, I should apprehend, 

 no naturalist, who is at the same time a scholar, and 

 has any ear, will ever consent to. 



The end of system, as 1 just now observed, is to 

 facilitate study, but Fabricius, in his eagerness to 

 innovate, has fixed upon characters taken from 

 organs, which, in a large proportion of insects, are 



(h) Philos. Ent. Prsefat. p. 1,2. When one sees Fabricius 

 and his followers, in tlieir Synonyjns, placing his name before 

 that of Linneus, under insects first described by the latter, 

 one cannot help feeling some emotions of anger at the indignity- 

 thus put upon that illustrious naturalist^ 



absolutely 



