*X2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



From this recapitulation of what has been done 

 by Linneus and others, it will appear that no very- 

 essential improvements have been made in this class, 

 from the time of the publication of the tenth edition 

 of the Sy sterna Natura in 1758, to the time when 

 the system of Fabricius first made its appearance 

 in 1775. Only two good genera had been sepa- 

 rated' from those of Linneus ; the Nomada from 

 uipisy after Reaumur, by De Geer, and the minute 

 Ichneumons by GeofFroy, but confounded with 

 Cynips. A slow progress, and by no means equal 

 to that of botany, considering the vast number of 

 non-descript species discovered during this period. 



I shall now call the reader's attention to what 

 has been attempted by Fabricius in this class. 

 Originally he united together Ephemera, Phry- 

 ganea, Hemerohius, Termes, Jilyrmeleon, Panorpaj 

 Raphidia, all the Hymenoptera , Monoculiis, Onis- 

 cus, Lepisma, and Podura. " Turha sane stu- 

 penda" as Villars justly exclaims (c), " insoUta, 

 sed instrumeiitis cibariis approxhnata !" . Probably 

 the absurdity of uniting in one class so hetero- 

 geneous a mixture of genera, as opposite to and 

 unconnected with each other as light and darkness, 

 induced this author in his Entomolog'ia systematica 

 emendata et aucta, published in 1793, at length to 

 o-ive to the Hymenoptera class a separate existence, 

 under the name of Piezata ; a word, derived, I 

 presume, from 7r/£(a>, premo. His definition of this 



(c) Ent. Eur. torn. 1. p. 580. 



class 



