INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



I should not have taken so much liberty in my 

 strictures upon the system of this celebrated au- 

 thor, had not many eminent entomologists upon 

 the continent adopted it without resen'^e, and en- 

 deavoured to force it upon the public. A conduct 

 which I conceive to be most prejudicial to the in- 

 terests of science, and unjust to the merits of the 

 greatest uninspired naturalist that ever lived. In 

 justice to my own countrymen I must not omit to 

 obsen^e, that this system has gained very little 

 ground in England. 



At the same time, although I have spoken my 

 sentiments so freely of the svstem of Fabricius, it 

 is with pleasure I acknowledge that his Philosophia 

 ^ntomologica is a work of standard merit, which 

 desen'es to be thoroughly studied by every ento- 

 jnologist, and if he had written nothing else, this 

 alone would have entitled him to be ranked amongst 

 the first philosophers of the age in which he lives (/). 

 The construction of Natural Characters^ although 

 chiefly drawn from those inconspicuous parts on 

 which he builds his system, is a great point gained 

 in the science; and in 'general if, in some respects, 



(Z) I must except, however, from this praise, many of his 

 definitions: E.G. Aldomen Conlacm, Cylindricum, &c. where 

 the usual sense of these terms is clogged with unnecessary ad- 

 ditions. Philos. Ent. c. ii. § 12. &c. It were to be wished that 

 in all cases the definitions of the Fundamenta Entomologies of 

 jLinneus had been primarily adhered to, 



he 



