24 MEMOIR OF LATHEILLE. 



now become general among naturalists, that this 

 was the only way in which the study of natural 

 objects could he prosecuted with advantage. " The 

 road, it is true," says Latreille himself, * speaking 

 in reference to the natural arrangement of insects, 

 " had already been traced by great masters, and the 

 series of principal groups had been tolerably well 

 established; but they had neglected the study of 

 those relations of affinity by which these groups 

 are connected ; they had never compared the cha- 

 racters of the one with those of the other. Struck 

 with this deficiency, I conceived the idea of uniting 

 the genera into families, a project which I first car- 

 ried into effect in my ' Precis des Caracteres,' &c. 

 That was only a mere sketch, and I again took up 

 the subject in a more extensive sense, and accom- 

 panied with all the details of which it was suscep- 

 tible." But the conception which our author had 

 formed, even at the early period of which we speak, 

 was a very accurate one ; and although in several 

 respects it was afterwards modified, some parts of it 

 required nothing more than to be fully developed 

 and applied. A pretty close resemblance can be 

 traced to the Linnean system ; and the Crustacea, 

 Arachnides, and Myriapodes are included, as in the 

 latter, among insects. The most important change 



minimi diseriminis diligentissima observatio." Intro, ad Hist. 

 Nat., 1775, p. 401. 



* Considerations Generates sur TOrdre Natnrel des Animaux 

 composant les Classes des Crustaces, des Araclinides, et des 

 Inseetes. Paris 1810, 8vo. 



