HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 4-65 



Entomology, however, in other respects was deeply 

 indebted to this great man. He first, as was lately ob- 

 served, directed the attention of her votaries to parts 

 which enabled them better to follow the chain of affini- 

 ties, and to trace out natural groups. In his Philosophia 

 Entomologica, drawn up on the plan of Linne's Philoso- 

 phia Botanica, he bequeathed to the science a standard 

 work that ought to be studied by every Entomologist. 

 His incredible labours in defining new genera and de- 

 scribing new species, with which view he travelled into 

 various parts of Europe, and seve?i times into Britain, 

 have been of infinite service a , and placed the science 

 upon a footing much nearer to that of Botany than it 

 had ever before attained. 



6. Era of Latreille, or of the Eclectic System. The 

 system of Fabricius, though generally adopted in Ger- 

 many and Switzerland, did not meet with a universal re- 

 ception. It seems to have gained no permanent footing 

 in the North of Europe, Britain, or France. In the latter 

 country the Linnean phraseology and characters of the 

 Orders were retained by the celebrated Olivier; while at 

 the same time his definitions of genera were construct- 

 ed, after the Fabrician model, upon the antenna and the 

 oral organs. But a new and brilliant genius had now 

 appeared in France, whose indefatigable labours and 

 singular talents have thrown more light over entomolo- 

 gical science than those of all his predecessors. In 1 796, 

 about two years after Fabricius had completed his Ento- 

 mologia Systematica emendata et aucta, M. Latreille pub- 

 lished his Precis de Caracteres Generiques des Insectes ; 



* Fab. Enfomolog. Syst. em. et auct. i. Praef. iv. 

 VOL. IV. 2 H 



