NATURAL, SYSTEM. /3 



natural groups, arranged according to the affinities which 

 they respectively possess with each other. His first work 

 appeared in 1 796 ; and since this period up to the present 

 time, the works of entomologists in general have been directed 

 towards the same end. Latreille himself, until his lament- 

 ed decease in 1833, ceased not to strive to render his views 

 more accordant with nature. Cuvier, by his admirable com- 

 parative anatomical researches ; Dumeril, Lamarck, Savigny, 

 MacLeay, Kirby, Meigen, Schonherr, and a great number of 

 other distinguished authors, have followed in the same steps, 

 and have endeavoured to render the distribution of insects 

 more perfect, and more easily applicable; or to complete 

 our knowledge of groups by the publication of descriptions 

 of new species, or of anatomical details of those already 

 known. 



In respect, therefore, to precision of observation, to the 

 distribution of insects into natural groups, and the classi- 

 fication of such groups, it is evident, that in our own 

 times the greatest progress has been made in Entomology. 

 Earlier classifications were founded upon individual and 

 isolated characters, so that the groups which exist in nature 

 were but vaguely exhibited ; but at the present day, by the 

 examination of the general characters of insects, all such as 

 are allied together in nature are brought into contact, the 

 effect whereof is, that it is sufficient only to obtain a com- 

 plete knowledge of a single individual, in order to gain a 

 clue to the general structure of the whole of the species 

 which are arranged with it. 



In like manner, the investigation of the internal anatomy 

 of these animals has been equally progressive ; for, instead 

 of simply examining the structure of such or such an isolated 

 animal, entomologists, following in the steps of the com- 

 parative anatomists, have traced the modifications which each 



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