UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 47 
HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF ENTOMOLOGY TO 1800. 
BY HAROLD R. HAGAN. 
Entomology is a modern science. It is still a very 
young science with many rough, projecting points of 
achievement marking the contributions of the rare genius 
in the field. To glance back at those earlier workers and 
recall their labors and successes in entomology is indeed 
a pleasure. 
Aristotle is our first historical figure. In the philo- 
sophical branches of science he was more often in error 
than in truth. I think perhaps this can be traced to his 
efforts to equal or surpass his great teacher, Plato. It 
is certain that ‘‘Platonic’”’ philosophy exerted a tremend- 
ous influence upon his life and work. 
His temperament was better suited to observing and 
recording natural phenomena, however, than to philo- 
sophical deduction and the interpretation of physical 
forces. His contributions in biology represent an amount 
of work rarely surpassed in more modern times. I doubt 
that he had a complete first-hand knowledge of all the 
animals treated by him. He fails to mention many com- 
mon animals in his country, yet he undoubtedly had con- 
siderable data concerning them. In his writings he con- 
siders over five hundred species, which is a far greater 
number than the average educated person today can even 
mention by common name. In his writings, I believe it 
safer, in general, to accept the accurate statements as the 
results of his own labors, while much of the descriptive 
material at variance to truth is more likely the “filler” 
of his encyclopaedic efforts gathered from others. He 
gave considerable attention to insects and some of his 
eight order names are still in use, but of course with much 
more limited fauna in each as the result of modern inten- 
sive study and development of the science. 
In his studies of the life-history of the honeybee and 
