28 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



optera, for new terms of his own invention. ■ The Coleoptera thus 

 became Elytroptera, which has exactly the same English equivalent. 

 These new names of Clairville, however, never came into general use, 

 in fact scarcely survived their author. But to this Swiss we owe a 

 number of genera we now recognize. It was he who split up the 

 great genera Carahus and Curculio of Linnaeus, which latter ap- 

 parently embraced almost all the Rhyncophora into several distinct 

 smaller ones. Thus of Carahus he made C ambus, Labrus, Badister, 

 Sphodrus, Stomis, and Trechus ; while Dytiscus became Hydro- 

 porus, Colymbetes, Dytiscus, and Noterus. These changes, however, 

 were not made before 1806, and we are slightly anticipating the 

 current of development. 



Reverting therefore a few years back, we find it was a Dane, one 

 John Christian Fabricius, on whom the special mantle of the great 

 Swede fell as regards Entomology. In any review of the study of 

 Coleoptera, the name of Fabricius takes a prominent position. He 

 was born in Tendern, Schleswig, in 1748, occupied a professor's chair 

 in Kiel University, and died in 1807. He seems to have been a pupil 

 of the great savant of Upsala, and followed closely in the master's 

 footsteps. He, however, like Clairville, could not resist the tempta- 

 tion of calling Coleoptera something else, so with Fabricius, we must 

 learn to call beetles " Elutherata." His " System Eleutheratorum " 

 was published at Kiel in 1801. This work may be regarded as con- 

 taining his final classification ; in it he recurs to the antennal system 

 of Linnaeus, but expands the groups into six instead of three. Thus : 



1. Antennae with club Lamellate (Lamellicornis). 



2. Do. ,, ,, Perfoliate (including all Palpicornia and 



and part of Clavicornia). 



3. Club solid or inflated (remainder of Clavicornia and part of 



Rhyncophora). 



4. Antennae muniliform (beaded) (part of Rhyncophora, Brache- 



lytra, Heteromera, Phytophaga). 



5. Antennae filiform (thread-like). 



6. Antennae setaceus (bristle-like). 



This arrangement results in the division of such allied genera as 

 Carabus and Cicindela, and the union of such dissimilar ones as 

 Dytiscus and Forficula, again made a beetle of in this plan. Thus it 

 seems a too great devotion to what may be called the Northern or 

 Linnean school, led Fabricius rather far from a truly natural system. 

 But we owe to him the discovery of a great number of new species, 

 to which he applied specific names with a singularly happy appropri- 



