18 HISTORY OF THE CLASSIFICATION 



precise anatomical characters given to them in Latreille's 

 Genera Insectorum, it will be found that the arrangement of 

 this branch of the Lamellicornes has since undergone but 

 little further improvement. Latreille has indeed combined 

 Olivier's " Scarabees qui ont des mandibules sans levre su- 

 perieure" with the " Scarabees des arbres" and the " Sca- 

 rabees desjleurs" of De Geer, under the general name of 

 the family of Scarabeides : but it is difficult to perceive the 

 advantages derived from this alteration ; and it may even 

 be questioned whether in several instances it be altogether 

 conformable to nature. The publication, however, of the 

 Precis des Genres conferred, by the distribution of insects 

 into families, the most signal benefits on this as well as on 

 every other branch of entomology. In this work Latreille di- 

 vides the Lamellicornes into two families, which answer to 

 the genera Lucanus and Scarabceus of Linnaeus ; and these 

 he again subdivides into genera. He also gives the names 

 Scarabceus and Geotrupes to Olivier's first and second di- 

 visions of Scarabcci, and restores the Geoffroyan genus Co- 

 pris, while this as well as all the other genera are infinitely 

 better defined than ever they were before. In the Histoire 

 Generale des Crust acees et des Insect es, the same author 

 establishes four families, viz. Luca?iides, Scarabeides, Geo- 

 trupini, and Coprophagi. The same plan is pursued in the 

 Genera Crust aceorum et Insectorum and in the Considera- 

 tions Generales. But in the last two works these four fami- 

 lies are united into one group, to which he afterwards gave 

 the name of Lamellicornes. It remains now only necessary 

 to mention the institution of the genus Aphodius by Illiger, 

 ofRutela* and Glaphyrus by Latreille, as alterations that 

 bring our general knowledge of the lamellicorn insects to 

 a The genus Rutela was indicated by Olivier. Ent. i. no. 6. p. 4. 



