44-8 HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



in the twelfth (uniting the Orthoptera, which he had at 

 first considered as of a Coleopterous type, to the Hemi- 

 ptera] also their limits. His system, being founded upon 

 the absence or presence and characters of the organs 

 for flight, is in some degree a republication of the Ari- 

 stotelian, and may be called the Alary System. 



C Superior \ crustaceous with a straight suture Coleoptera . . . 

 N f semicrustaceous, incumbent .... Hemiptera . . . 

 " J C imbricated with scales Lepidoptera . 



AU j membranous-Anus 5 un m ! d ' j " 



aculeate . } Hymenoptera 5. 



. Poisers in the place of the posterior pair .... Diptera .... 6. 

 0. Or without either wings or elytra Aptera 7. 



In considering this table, it must strike every one ac- 

 quainted with the subject, that although the assumption 

 of a single set of organs whereon to build a system can 

 scarcely be expected to lead to one perfectly natural, 

 yet that the majority of the groups here given as Orders 

 merit that character. The second indeed and the last 

 require further subdivision, and concerning the fourth 

 no satisfactory conclusion has yet been drawn. With 

 regard to his series of the Orders, it is mostly artificial. 

 Linne has the advantage of all his predecessors in giving 

 clearer definitions of his Orders, and in their nomencla- 

 ture; in which he has followed the path first trodden 

 by Aristotle. 



One of his most prominent excellencies, which led 

 the way more than any thing else to a distinct know- 

 ledge of natural objects, was his giving definitions of his 

 genera, or the groups that he distinguished by that name, 

 since all preceding writers had merely made them known 

 by the imposition of a name. His generic characters 

 of insects were of two kinds : A shorter, containing the 



