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Show iv PREFACE. mals-Journal d' Hist. JV'at.-that M. Cuvier commenced his career in natural history. Entomology, in common with all the other branches of Zoology, has derived the greatest advantage from his anatomical researches, and the happy changes he has effected in the basis of our classification. The internal organization of Insects is now better known, and this study is no longer neglected as was previously the case. He has placed us on the way to the Natural System(!), and greatly will the public regret that his numerous occupations did not allow hini to superintend this portion of his treatise on animals. Perhaps the desire of associating my name with his in a work like this, which, by the multitude of researches on which it rests, and by their application, has become a precious liter~ry monument of the age, has deceived me and thrown me into an enterprize beyon~ my powers to accomplish. The responsibility is great, and I have imposed upon myself a task, in which the boldness of the plan is only equalled by the difficulty of its execution. To unite within a very limited space the most interesting facts in the history of Insects, to arrange them with precision and clearness in a natural series, to pourtray with a bold pencil the physiognomy o.f these animals, trace their distinguishing characters with truth and brevity, in a way proportioned to the successive progress of the science and that of the pupil, to indicate useful or noxious species, and those whose mode of life interests our curiosity, to point out the best sources from which the knowledge of others may be obtained, to restore to Entomology the amiable simplicity which it possessed in the days of Linnreus, Geoffroy, and of the early writings of Fabricius, but still to present it as it now is, or with all the wealth of observation it has since acquired, yet without overloading it; in a word, to conform to the model before me, the work of M. Cuvier, is the end I have striven to attain. This savant, in his ''Tableau Elementaire de l'Histoire Naturelle des Animaux," did not restrict the extent given by (1) Tableau Element. de l'llist. Nat. des Animaux, and the Le~. d'Anat. Com par. PltE.FACE. Linn reus to his class of Insects; he however made some necessary ameliorations, which have since served a& the foundation of other systems. He distinguishes Insects, in the first place, from other invertebrate animals, by much more rigorous characters than those previously employed, viz. a knotted medullary spinal marrow, and articulated limbs. Linnreus terminates his class of Insects with those which are apterous, although most of them, such as the Crustacea and the .llraneides, with respect to their organization, are the most perfect of their class or are the most closely approximated to the Mollusca. His method, in this respect, is th~n exactly the inverse of the natural system, and by transporting the Crustacea to the head of the class, and by placing almost all the Aptera of Linnreus directly after them, Cuvier rectified the method in a point where the series was in direct opposition to the scale formed by Nature. In his Lefons d' .!lnatomie Comparee, the class of Insects, from which he now separates the Crustacea, is divided into nine orders, founded on the natt1re and functions of the organs of manducation, the presence or absence of wings, their number, consistence, and the manner in which tl-1ey are reticulated. It is in fact a union of the system of Fabricius with that of Linnreus perfected. The divisions made by our savant in his first order, that of the Gnathaptera, are nearly similar to those I had established in a Memoir presented to the Societe Philomatique, April 1795, and in my Precis des Caracteres Generiques des In-sectes( l ). M. de Lamarck, whose name is so dear to the friends of natural science, has ably profited by these various labours. His systematic arrangement of the Linnrean Aptera appears to us to be that which approaches nearest to the natural order, and, with some modifications of which we are about to speak, is the one we have followed. (1) I there divided the Aptera ofLinn~us into seven orders: 1. The SuoTonu.. 2. The TIIYUNouu. 3. The P.A.RASITA. 4. The AcEPRALA. (.Oraclmides palpiate8, Lam.). 5. The ENTo.Mos·r·Iu.cA- 6. The CnusTA.c.EA. 7. The M:rBU.POD.A. |