XXV111 LIST OF AUTHORS 



Nat. des Reptiles" (1801, 4 vols.), "Hist. Nat. des 

 Singes" (1802, 2 vols.), "Consid. gen. sur FOrdre Nat. 

 desAnim. composant les Classes des Crustacees, desArach- 

 nides, et des Insectes" (1820). Latreille may be said to 

 be the inventor of a new and certainly the most valuable 

 system of entomology yet proposed. Swammerdamm 

 had adopted metamorphosis as the groundwork of his 

 mode of distribution ; Linnaeus had considered the wings 

 as affording the most important characters, whilst Fabri- 

 cius had introduced the cibarian characters as of primary 

 importance. Latreille, however, had the tact to perceive 

 that a character, or set of characters, which in one group 

 was of primary importance, was only entitled to se- 

 condary consideration in other groups ; hence the Eclectic 

 System, in which all the elements of former system atists 

 were adopted. But another and even still more im- 

 portant step in the arrangement of annulose animals was 

 taken by Latreille in introducing the natural families, 

 into which allied genera, which had been treated by Fa- 

 bricius, Olivier, &c. as independent groups, were brought 

 together according to their natural relationships. The 

 first sketch of these natural groups appeared in his 

 earliest work, "Precis des Caracteres generiques," (1796, 

 8vo), now exceedingly scarce ; and in one of his last works, 

 " Families naturelles du Regne Animal," he applied the 

 same view to the whole of animated nature. The extreme 

 clearness and precision of his views in the distribution 

 and subdivision of his groups, is another great charac- 

 teristic of his writings, and is nowhere seen to greater 

 advantage than in his ' Genera ' above-mentioned, an un- 

 rivalled work, which doubtless led to his being selected 

 by Cuvier to undertake the Articulated department of the 

 " Regne Animal." His descriptions of new species, scat- 

 tered through his various works, and especially his Mo- 

 nograph of the Formicidse and his classification of the 

 Bees (published at the same time as Kirby's " Mono- 

 graphia Apum Anglise "), are deserving of all praise. In 

 all these works he employed characters derived from re- 

 peated dissections of his materials; and it may be in- 

 teresting to mention that his collection of dissections 

 of Coleopterous insects, enriched with his notes and 

 sketches, was secured by Mr. Westwood, and is pre- 

 served in the Hopeian Museum at Oxford. He was 

 (perhaps fortunately for entomology) by no means in 

 affluent circumstances, and was consequently much en- 

 gaged by the booksellers. To this also was to be attri- 

 buted the necessity for the sale of his collection which 



