If we turn from the word and people of God to the Lovers of Wisdom (as they modestly styled themselves) of the heathen world, and their writings; we shall discern amongst them a great light shining, the beams of which illuminate even our own times. In the illustrious Stagyrite we recognize—"The father of philosophy, at least of our philosophy, who, rising superior to the darkness in which he lived, darted his penetrating glance through all nature, and established principles which a long course of ages of inquiry have but confirmed. With Aristotle begins the real History of science: and how much soever he may have erred upon particular points, the greatness of his conceptions and the justness of his ideas, on the whole entitle him to our high veneration. His labours in the investigation of the Animal Kingdom have laid the foundation of the knowledge we now possess[1325]." This language of the lamented and learned President of the Linnean Society is particularly applicable to what this great and original genius has effected in Entomology. We have seen upon a former occasion[1326], that Linné himself had not those precise ideas of the limits of the Class Insecta, which Aristotle so many centuries before him had adopted. In stating the obligations of Entomology to this true sçavant, I shall begin by laying before you a tabular view of what may be called his system, as far as I have been able to collect it from his works, especially his History of Animals.

Coleoptera[1327].
Pedetica = Orthoptera saltatoria Latr.[1328]
Astomata = Hemiptera Latr.[1329]
Pterota vel Ptilota[1331] Psychæ = Lepidoptera[1330].
Tetraptera majora = Neuroptera L. Orthoptera cursoria Latr.[1332]?
Opisthocentra = Hymenoptera[1333].
Diptera[1334] minora = Musca, Tipula, &c.
Emprosthocentra = Culex, Stomoxys, Tabanus, &c.
Insecta Pterota simul et Aptera[1335] Myrmex = Formica L.
Pygolampis = Lampyris L.
Aptera[1336].

It may be further stated, that Aristotle perceived also the distinction between the Mandibulata and Haustellata of modern authors: for he observes, that some insects having teeth are omnivorous; while others, that have only a tongue, are supported by liquid food[1337]. He appears to have regarded the Hymenoptera, or some of them, as forming a third subclass; since he clearly alludes to them, when he says that many have teeth, not for feeding, but to help them in fulfilling their instincts[1338].

From the above statement it will appear that this great philosopher had no contemptible notion,—though he has only distinguished three of them as larger groups by appropriate names,—of the majority of the Orders of Insects at present admitted. His Coleoptera, Psychæ, and Diptera are evidently such. His idea of Hemiptera seems taken solely from the Cicada or Tettix: but the manner in which he expresses himself concerning it, as having no mouth, but furnished instead with a linguiform organ resembling the proboscis of Diptera[1339], proves that he regarded it as the type of a distinct group. Since he considers the saltatorious Orthoptera as forming such a group, it is probable that he included the cursorious ones with the Neuroptera in his majora section of Tetraptera; and the resemblance of many of the Mantidæ to the Neuroptera is so great, that this mistake would not be wonderful. His division of the Diptera is quite artificial.

How far Aristotle's ideas with regard to genera and species attained to any degree of precision, is not easily ascertained: in other respects his knowledge of insects was more evident. As to their anatomy, he observes that their body is usually divided into three primary segments,—head, trunk, and abdomen; that they have an intestinal canal,—in some straight and simple, in others contorted,—extending from the mouth to the anus; that the Orthoptera have a ventricle or gizzard[1340]. He had noticed the drums of Cicada, and that the males only are vocal. Other instances of the accurate observation of this great man might be adduced, but enough has been said to justify the above encomiums. His principal error was that of equivocal generation.

Little is known with regard to the progress of other

Greek Naturalists in entomological science. It appears probable, from an epithet by which Hesiod distinguishes the spider—air-flying[1341], that the fact of these insects traversing the air was at that time no secret. Apollodorus, as we learn from Pliny[1342], was the first monographer of insects, since he wrote a treatise upon scorpions, and described nine species. But like many other Zoologists, by mistaking analogy for affinity, he has included a winged insect, probably a Panorpa, amongst his scorpions. From the time of Aristotle, however, to Pliny, no writer is recorded, with the exception of those before alluded to[1343], that appears to have attended much to insects. They are indeed incidentally noticed by Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Virgil, Ovid, &c., but without any material addition to the stock of entomological knowledge bequeathed to us by the Stagyrite. Even Pliny's vast compendium, as it professed to be, of the natural history of the globe, was in many respects little more than a compilation from that great philosopher. Still, however, though he does not appear to have paid much practical attention to insects,—which indeed, considering the extent of his views, was scarcely to be expected,—yet as a guide to the then state of entomological knowledge, and as an advocate for the study, which in the exordium of his eleventh book he has so eloquently and with so much animation defended from the misrepresentations of ignorance, Pliny has conferred a lasting obligation on the science. The last zoological writer of note was Ælian, who amongst other animals often mentions insects. He has, however, few original observations. One was, that scorpions are viviparous[1344]. From him we learn incidentally that artificial flies were sometimes used by Grecian anglers[1345].

2. The Era of the Revival of the Science. From the time of Pliny and Ælian 1400 years rolled away, in which scarcely any thing was done or attempted for Entomology or Natural History in general. During that long night the glimmer of only one faint luminary appeared to make a short and feeble twilight. In the middle of the thirteenth century Albertus Magnus (so called from his family name of Groot, and justly, if incredible labour could entitle a man to the appellation), devoted one out of twenty-one folio volumes to Natural History. In this work he professes not so much to give his own opinions, as those of the Peripatetic philosophers[1346]. He occasionally, however, relates the result of observations made by himself, which prove him to have been no inattentive student of nature. He mentions a voyage that he made for the purpose of collecting marine animals, and that he found of them ten different tribes or genera, and several species of each. Amongst these he particularizes the Cephalopoda, the Crustacea, the testaceous Mollusca, and some of the Radiata and Acrita, &c.[1347] He gives a very correct account of the pitfalls of Myrmeleon. Insects he distinguishes, excluding the Crustacea, by the denomination of Anulosa (Annulosa), which he appears to employ as a known term[1348]. He also calls them worms, describing butterflies as flying worms, flies as fly-worms, spiders as spider-worms; and what is still more extraordinary, the toad and the frog, which he includes amongst his Anulosa, he calls quadruped-worms[1349]!! Though it may appear so absurd to speak of these animals as insects, yet he had perhaps a deeper and more philosophical reason for this than we may at first be disposed to give him credit for. This would be the case if he separated these from the other reptiles and placed them amongst insects on account of their metamorphoses, mistaking perhaps an analogical character for one of affinity[1350]. Some of the Annelida, as Filaria and Lumbricus[1351], he also regarded as insects. I cannot gather from his desultory pages that he had any notion of a systematical arrangement of his Anulosa.

After the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in the middle of the fifteenth century, the light of learning, kindled by those of its professors who escaped from that ruin, appeared again in the West. The Greek language then began to be studied universally; and in consequence of the coeval invention of the art of printing, various editions of the great works of the ancients were published: amongst the rest those of the fathers of Natural History. From the perusal of these, the love of the sciences of which they treated revived in the West, and the attention of scientific men began to direct itself to the consideration and study of the works of their Creator. In the latter part of that century, a work entitled the Book of Nature appeared in the German language, in which animals and plants were treated of and rudely figured; as they were likewise most miserably in Cuba's Ortus Sanitatis, published in 1485, in which insects and Crustacea were described under the three different denominations of Animals, Birds, and Fishes; so that but little profit was at first derived from the writings of Aristotle, Invertebrate animals not being then even honoured with