ENTOMOLOGY (from ;rive an insect, and Asysc a discourse) is the name of a science, embracing the study of all such annulose animals as have articulat, ed legs; namely of Cirripidea, Cruseacea, Myriapoda, Acari, Arachnoida, and Insecta.
Under the head ANNULOSA (Vol. I. p. 401-429- 432 and 447) we have already given a rapid sketch of the principal systems that have been proposed by various authors. In the present article it is our in tention to exhibit an historical view of the rise and progress of Entomology, and to enumerate, with ge neral remarks, all the works and dissertations that have come under our view.
Of the most ancient writers on this subject we are totally ignorant ; we know only that insects were not unnoticed by Moses, who frequently alludes to them in the sacred writings; and it is said that Solo mon cultivated this as well as other branches of na tural history.
Linus, a poet of Thebes, is the first author who is recorded to have described all animals and plants. After him, Orpheus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Demo critus, and Hippocrates, are quoted by Pliny and other authors, as having studied Insects; but we be lieve that none of their works on this subject are now extant.
Aristotle wrote on insects. In the seventh chap ter of his first book, we find his irrepsis accurately distinguished from the other animals of the group of exsanguineous animals, with which he arranged them. In the first chapter of the fourth book, the essential external characters are more clearly given : namely, the incisions on the back and belly, &c. In another part of his work, he describes them as being comp posed of three parts, the head, trunk, and abdomen; and mentions their legs. In subsequent passages, he .describes insects that fly, and te that walk. Amongst the former, he notices those with naked and those with sheathed wings; he observes, too, that some have these sheaths divided, and others im moveably connected; he distinguishes also insects with two and insects with four wings; and observes, that the latter are often furnished with stings, whilst the former are always destitute of these weapons.
The modifications in the form of the antenna: and legs of insects, he has likewise described with accu racy. A cursory perusal of this work will astonish the modern Entomologist, who will be surprised at its consistency, and with the accordance of the author's divisions with the present systems of Entomology. Alexander the Great furnished Aristotle with means of cultivating science, which no other philosopher ever enjoyed ; yet, notwithstanding these advan tages, and his astonishing powers of mind, his writ ings contain too great an accumulation of know ledge, to have been the result of his individual in quiries: and we are perfectly convinced, from the slow manner in which all human knowledge is de veloped, that the study of nature must have made very considerable advances before his time; and that he must have derived assistance, either from his pu pils, or from the labours of more ancient naturalists.
Speusippus and Leonides, pupils of Plato and Aris totle, are quoted by Athenieus, as having turned their attention towards Insects.
Xenocrates, who lived in the 110th Olympiad, in his six books on Nature, treated of Insects.
Theophrastus, too, an auditor of Plato and Aris totle, notices Insects in his writings.
Antigone, who flourished under Ptolemy H. in a work, which was published at Leipsic in 1791, al ludes to the manners of Insects.
Amongst the Greek writers who immediately, or within a few centuries, followed Aristotle, treating on Insects, we find quoted the names of Democritus, Neoptolemus, Philistus, Nicander, and Herodius. These writers are supposed to have been contempora ry with Pliny; and, during the same period, several Latin writers seem to have pursued the science through the influence of the Greeks, who were in sensibly led to it, from their culture of bees, which was at that time attended to with the most enthu siastic ardour. Aristomachus is said to have written on the subject, from the result of fifty years' experi ence ; and Philiscus to have employed his whole life in deserts and forests attending to their history.