373 
On Entomology. 
instance ;—snakes were supposed to be bred by merely watering the 
ground with a certain prepared liquid; and such notoriety did this 
error gain, that Kireher, one of the most learned men of his day, ac¬ 
tually published a recipe for the manufacture of them. Redi, how¬ 
ever, who flourished about the same time, and published a work on 
insect generation, about the latter end of the century, informs us, that 
he acted up to Kircher’s recipe, to a nicety, for a many times, but 
produced no living snakes; however, he discovered a number of 
small maggots to exist on the spot where the experiments were tried ; 
these were found, from observation, to be blown by a brilliant green 
fly, not improbably the Musca Cce'sar, of Linnaeus. These, and 
many other such-like errors, long prevailed; and as many errors still 
do prevail, particularly amongst such persons, who have not sufficient 
means to purchase the scientific works of the present day, it becomes 
necessary to adopt some method within their reach, to inform the 
mind, and obviate the apparent difficulties;—this is my chief view 
in writing the present paper, a series of which I intend to continue, 
until I have proceeded through the whole an’angement;—and first, 
I shall commence with informing your young readers, of the diflPerent 
systems adopted and followed from the early ages; and then, pro¬ 
ceed to simplify the Eclectic or Modern system, which originated with 
M. Clairville, and was followed by Latreille, Dr. Leach, and Mr. 
Stephens, so as to enable any person, however previously ignorant of 
the nature of Entomology, to ascertain to what order, and family of 
insects, those belong to, he may at any time capture. 
Mr. Rennie remarks, that “x\ristotle seems to have been the first 
naturalist, who distinguished insects by their wings:” this system, 
however, has been followed with greater minuteness in recent times, 
by Linnaeus and De Geer. The next system, in order of time, rec¬ 
koning from Aristotle, originated with Ulysses Aldrovand, ^‘the emi¬ 
nent naturalist of Italy,” who arranged them according to the places 
they frequented,—this method was followed by Vallisnieri, Fabricius, 
and Latreille. The third system, was adopted by Swammerdam, 
about the middle of the 17th century, and was arranged according to 
the nature of their transformation;—this method, Ray and Willoughby 
followed. Fabricius, a Danish writer of high celebrity, conceived 
the idea of classifying them, from the structure of their mouths, or 
feeding organs; this is called the Ciharian, Maxillary, or Mouth 
system, which has been adhered to by Cuvier and Lamarck. Sir 
Sverard Home arranged them according to the structure, &c. of their 
eggs, w'hich is called the Ovary (from ora, an egg) system. Mr. 
Mc.Leay proposes to arrange groups of fives, so as to place those, 
which have the nearest resemblance, contiguous to one another, in 
