22 
MEMOIR OF LATUEILLE* 
secies, disposes dans un Ordre naturel, published at 
Brives in the year just mentioned. In order to 
make the design and merits of this work better un- 
derstood, it may be desirable to say a few words re- 
specting the state of entomological science when it 
made its appearance. 
In the classification of insects, to which alone this 
work referred, there were several different principles 
at that time followed by different authors. Such 
of them as approved of Swammerdam's views, as- 
sumed the metamorphoses as the soundest basis of 
arrangement, and considered these to be the most 
important characters they afforded. A greater num- 
ber adopted the opinion of Aristotle and Linnmus, 
and sought for principles of arrangement in the or- 
gans of motion ; regarding characters derived from 
the immature or preparatory states of insects as un- 
satisfactory and of comparatively little value. In- 
deed, the arrangement of Linnams, or the alary 
system, as it was sometimes called, recommended 
by its extreme simplicity and an admirable system 
of nomenclature, had been extensively adopted, and 
seemed so entirely to occupy the field as to pre- 
clude, at least for a time, the success of any rival. 
Although Fabricius found fault with these arrange- 
ments as founded too exclusively on the considera- 
tion of one point or one set of organs, he cannot be 
acquitted of having fallen into a corresponding error, 
by confining his attention too closely to the struc- 
ture of the organs of the mouth. Yet the use he 
made of the diversities found in these parts is sur- 
