63 



been regarded as irksome, laborious, and unprofit- 

 able ; the publication of the Systema, therefore, first 

 rivetted attention, and consequently almost neces- 

 sarily ensured its success. As to the arrangement 

 of the Entomology of the Systema, it would not be 

 fair or just to compare it rigorously with our latter 

 and more modern Systems. It certainly has its 

 merits. Linneus commences with the Lamellicorns 

 and terminates with the Staphilinidae ; such views 

 have been adopted by others, and are still acknow- 

 ledged by various European writers. The La- 

 treillian arrangement, commencing with Cicindela 

 and Carabus, is not at all consonant with my views ; 

 and as I have expressed them in the preface of the 

 second Fasciculus, I shall not now recapitulate 

 them. It may be remarked, en passant, that the 

 Latreillian System, which by some has been de 

 nominated the more natural system, has its errors, 

 and what system, I ask, has not ? Linneus cannot 

 be accused of so outrageously violating the Natural 

 System, as the Prince of Entomologists, and others 

 of the French school have been, by separating the 

 Dyticoidea from the Hydrophiloidea. Their system 

 is, in the above instance, artificial in the extreme. 



Let us, however, look to the last Catalogue of the 

 Baron De Jean, the attached pupil of his illustrious 

 Master, and then form an opinion. Between the 

 Hydrocanthares and Palpicornes, (both of them 

 true aquatic groups,) we find the Brachelytra, the 

 Sternoxa, Malacordermata, Tilloidea, and Clavicor- 

 nea, comprehending a vast number of terrestrial 



