XXvi PREFACE. 



naturalist% who has laid it down as a rule, that we 

 ought to take the character from the conformation 

 alone, and not from any property or habits the 

 exercise of which is momentary. But the mere 

 authority of a name, however distinguished, could 

 .never shake the author's belief in a truth so ap- 

 parent, as that the conformation of an organized 

 being was originally ordained by nature subservient 

 to and dependent upon its habits and manner of 

 living; and that therefore to study for purposes of 

 arrangement the structure of an organ, without con- 

 sidering its use to the animal, is as if we were, on 

 comparing the merits of different pieces of mecha- 

 nism, to examine the form and count the number 

 of teeth in a wheel, without bestowing a thought on 

 the functions which this may perform in the whole 

 machine. Besides, that such a plan in Entomo- 

 logy is contrary to that of nature, was evident, by 

 the best work in the science having been pursued 

 on a totally different system. 



And here the author cannot refrain from ex- 

 pressing the extraordinary obligations which he 

 owes to the works of the Baron DeGeer, a man 

 whom he must ever consider as the first entomolo- 

 gist that has hitherto lived, and whose Memoires, 

 modestly entitled pour servir a VHistoire des In- 

 sectes, comprise a fund of observation and acute 



* Cuvier, Regne Animal, vol. i. p. 8. 



