HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 4:43 
siologist, and as the observant historian of the manners 
and economy of insects, his Memoires pour servir a 0 His- 
toire des Insectes are above all praise. His system? is 
contained in a posthumous volume published in 1778". 
This system, though built upon the instruments of 
flight ; in its ternary groups, equivalent to the Orders of 
Linné, adds likewise the instruments of manducation, 
and is thus intermediate between that of Linné and Fa- 
bricius, who perhaps from the consideration of it might 
derive the first idea of assuming the last-mentioned or- 
‘gans as the basis of a new method. But, though par- 
taking of both, it is nearer to nature than either; and 
had its illustrious author laid less stress upon the number 
and substance of the organs of flight, it would probably 
have been as near perfection in this respect as most that 
have succeeded it. But following too strictly these cha- 
racters, he has been led to place in different Classes, or 
rather Orders, insects that ought not to have been so se- 
parated,—as in the case of the two sections of the Hemz- 
ptera, and the Coccide. In other respects the whole of 
De Geer’s Memoires are a storehouse of valuable observa- 
tions, in which he has furnished many a clue for thread- 
ing the labyrinth of nature, and given most complete 
and interesting histories of the whole economy and ha- _ 
bits of many tribes and genera,—as of the Trichoptera, 
Aphides, Ephemerina, &c. 
In this latter department of the science a light shone 
during part of the era we are now considering, which 
eclipsed every one that appeared before it, and has 
scarcely been equalled by any one that succeeded it. 
The date of its first appearance, indeed, was a year be- 
* See the opposite page. 
» The first volume of his AZemoires was published in 1752; 
