ERA OF UNNiEUS. 71 



ill oiir clays, the distribution which he proposed, founded 

 upon the nature of the transformations of insects, has been 

 abandoned, it is not less true that the considerations upon 

 which it was established, constitute one of the most valuable 

 elements for a classification of insects, according to their 

 natural relations with each other. 



About the same period Lister, Leeuwenhoek, Madame 

 Merian, Valhsnieri, and Ray, rendered great service to Ento- 

 mology by making kno\^Ta, in considerable detail, a great 

 number of insects, whilst the Memoirs of Reaumur, whicli 

 appeai-ed about the middle of the eighteenth century, form a 

 storehouse of facts to whicli every entomologist cannot but 

 turn with new dehght. De Geer also, the prince of entomo- 

 logists, as he has been termed by MacLeay, floui-ished about 

 the same period, and either as regards classification, anatomy, 

 physiology, or the economy and habits of insects, his 

 " Memoires pour servir a I'Histoire des Insectes," written in 

 French, although printed at Stockholm, cannot be cited with- 

 out praise. There are other authors who have trod in the 

 steps of these illustrious men, but, up to the present time, 

 their labours have not been surpassed. 



We now^ arrive at the era of Linnaeus — a name to be re- 

 vered by every natm-alist. To him, every branch of Natural 

 History, Entomology in particular, are under the greatest 

 obligations for the strong impulse given to them. This is not 

 the place to detail his classification of insects, valuable as it is, 

 and purified from the errors with which the ancients had 

 darkened the subject; but we must here pay the debt of 

 justice and of gratitude for the admirable system of names 

 which he invented, and which has now become general ; for 

 the clearness and precision of the definitions which he gave 

 of the different orders of insects, for the establishment of 

 genera, and for the promulgation of a code of philosophical 

 precepts relative to natural history and botany. 



