HISTORY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 455 
about two years after Fabricius had completed his Ento- 
mologia Systematica emendata et aucta, M. Latreille pub- 
lished his Précis de Caractéres Génériques des Insectes ; 
in which important work, walking in the steps of his 
great compatriot Bernard de Jussieu, he disregarded all 
artificial systems of Entomology, and attempted to con- 
struct one upon a xatural basis: and to this end, uniting 
the consideration of the instruments of manducation 
with that of the organs for flight and motion, and of 
other external characters,—or the system of Linné with 
that of Fabricius,—he became the founder of the modern 
or Eclectic system*; for he judiciously adopted that sen- 
sible dictum of Scopoli, “ Classes et Genera naturalia, 
non sola instrumenta cibaria, non sole ala, nec sole 
antenne constituunt, sed structura fofius, ac cujusque 
vel minimi discriminis diligentissima observatio >.” His 
object has been in the above and subsequent works, by 
dividing his Classes into natural Groups, from the Order 
to the Genus, to trace out in all its windings, to its in- 
most recesses, the perplexing labyrinth of the true system 
of the Creator :—of what he has effected, the subjoined 
tables will give you a sufficient idea‘. 
a Fabricius calls this a chaos, and threatens to prove it, but he 
never fulfilled his threat. See Fab. Supplem. Preef. i. 
> Introd. ad Hist. Nat. 401. 
¢ See N. Dict. d@ Hist. Nat. x. article Entomologie. 
