HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 4-61 



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 

 month : 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 b , 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. 



Thejr.tf outline of his System, I believe, appeared in 

 his Sy sterna Entomologies published in 1775; and the last) 

 in his Supplement to his Entomologia Systematica in 1 798. 

 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 Ph'ilos. Entomolog. vi. . 2. Syst. Ent. Prolegom. 



c From EXfv0f(3o?, Free. 



