HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 44] 
life devoted to this single object, they would have en- 
titled him to a high rank amongst the heroes of the sci- 
ence. But how much more astonishing are they when 
considered but as gleanings from his hours of relaxation, 
snatched from labours infinitely greater, the produce, as 
he himself tells us, of moments consumed by others in 
‘* venationibus, confabulationibus, tesseris, chartis, lusi- 
bus, compotationibus?.” It is not so much in original 
discovery that the merits of Linné lie,—though consi- 
dered in this view they are pre-eminent,—as in the un- 
rivalled skill with which he sifted the observations of his 
predecessors, separating the ore from the dross, and con- 
centrating scattered rays of light into one focus. 
This era produced other systematists who adopted 
various methods, but none that merit particular notice 
except Geoffroy and De Geer. The former in this view 
is principally celebrated as the author of the method 
generally adopted by modern Entomologists, of dividing 
the Coleoptera into primary sections, according to the 
number of the joints of their tarsi. This method, 
though in many instances, as was formerly observed”, it 
leads to artificial results, in others affords a clue to na- 
tural groups; it can only therefore be applied subject to 
frequent exceptions. Geoffroy’s work‘, which was pub- 
lished in 1764, was further serviceable by indicating 
many genera not defined by Linné. 
We next come to one of the greatest names in Ento- 
mology, the celebrated De Geer, who united in himself 
the highest merit of almost every department of that 
science. Both as a systematist, an anatomist, and phy- 
4 Fn. Suec. Pref. > Vor. III. p. 682—. 
* Histoire abrégée des Insectes. 
