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Show Xll PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. M. de Lamarck, in which will be found all that the most ardent thirst for knowledge can desire. As regards Insects, which, by their external form, organi. zation, habits, and influence on all aHimated nature, are so highly interesting, I have been fortunate enough to find assis· tance, which, in rendering my work infinitely more perfect than it could have possibly been had it emanated from my pen alone, has at the same time considerably accelerated its publication. My friend and colleague M. Latreille, who has studied these animals more profoundly than any other man in Europe, has kindly consented to give, in a single volume, and nearly in the order adopted for the other parts, a summary of his immense researches, and an abridged description of those innumerable genera entomologists are contihually establishing. As for the rest, if in some places I have given less extent to the exposition of subgenera and species, all that relates to the superior divisions and the indicia of relations, I have founded on bases equally solid, by assiduous and universal re· searches. I have examined, one by one, all the species of which I could procure specimens ; I have approximated those which merely differed from each other in size, colour, or in the . number of some parts of little importance, and have formed them into what I denominate subgenera. Every time it was possible, I dissected one species at least of each subgenus, and if those be excepted to which the scalpel cannot be applied, but very few groups of this degree can be found in my work, of which I cannot produce some considerable portion of the organs. Having determined the names of the species I observed, which had been previously either well described or well figured, I placed in the same subgenera those I had not seen, but whose exact figures, or descriptions, sufficiently precise to leave no doubt remaining as to their natural rela· tions, I found in authors; but I have passed over in silence that great number of vague indications, on which, in my opinion, naturalists have been too eager to establish species, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xiii whose adoption is what has mainly contributed to introduce in the catalogue of beings, that confusion which deprives it of so great a portion of its utility. I could, every where, have added great numbers of new species, but. as I could not refer to figures it would in that case have been necessary to extend their descriptions beyond the bounds of my limits; I have preferred therefore depriving my work of that ornament, and have indicated those only whose singular formation gives origin to new subgenera. My subgenera once established on undoubted relations, and composed of well ascertained species, nothing remained but to construct this great scaffolding of genera, tribes, families, orders, classes and divisions which constitute the ensemble of the animal kingdom. Here I have proceeded, partly by ascending from the inferior to the superior divisions, by means of approximation and comparison, and partly by descending from the superior to the inferior divisions, on the principle of the subordination of characters; carefully comparing the results of the two methods, verifying one by the other, and always sedulously establishing the correspondence of forms, external and internal, both of which constitute integral parts of the essence of each animal . Such has been my mode of proceeding whenever it was ne-· cessary and possible to form new arrangements ; but I need not observe, that in many places, the results to which it would have conducted me, had been already so satisfactorily obtained, that no other trouble was left to me than that of following the track of my predecessors. Even in these cases, however, by new observations I have confirmed and verified what was previously acknowledged, and what I did not adopt until it was subjected to a rigorous scrutiny. An idea of this mode of examination may be obtained from the Memoirs on the anatomy of the Mollusca which have appeared in the "Annales du Museum," and of which I am now preparing a separate and augmented collection. I venture to a,ssure the reader, that the labour I have bestowed upon the Vertebrated animals, |