22 MEMOIR OF LATKEILLE. 



?, disposes dans un Ordre naturel, published at 

 Brives in the year just mentioned. In order to 

 make the design and merits of this work better un- 

 derstood, it may be desirable to say a few words re- 

 specting the state of entomological science when it 

 made its appearance. 



In the classification of insects, to which alone this 

 work referred, there were several different principles 

 at that time followed by different authors. Such 

 of them as approved of Swammerdam's views, as- 

 sumed the metamorphoses as the soundest basis of 

 arrangement, and considered these to be the most 

 important characters they afforded. A greater num- 

 ber adopted the opinion of Aristotle and Linnaeus, 

 and sought for principles of arrangement in the or- 

 gans of motion ; regarding characters derived from 

 the immature or preparatory states of insects as un- 

 satisfactory and of comparatively little value. In- 

 deed, the arrangement of Linnaeus, or the alary 

 system, as it was sometimes called, recommended 

 by its extreme simplicity and an admirable system 

 of nomenclature, had been extensively adopted, and 

 seemed so entirely to occupy the field as to pre- 

 clude, at least for a time, the success of any rival. 

 Although Fabricius found fault with these arrange- 

 ments as founded too exclusively on the considera- 

 tion of one point or one set of organs, he cannot be 

 acquitted of having fallen into a corresponding error, 

 by confining his attention too closely to the struc- 

 ture of the organs of the mouth. Yet the use he 

 made of the diversities found in these parts is sur- 



