Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/58

52 the investigations relating to insects, which compose the greater portion of the work, there is a lengthened account of the snail, (Helix,) explaining its anatomy, mode of propagation, &c., a treatise on the generation of the frog, on the anatomy of the cuttle-fish, &c. The manner in which Swammerdam treats of the arrangement of insects into classes, is, as might he expected, not a little defective. But he was certainly the first that assumed metamorphosis as the basis of a natural system, and in so doing, merits high approbation. He referred all to four classes of metamorphosis, which, translated into the modern language of entomology, may be expressed as follows:

The science of insect anatomy, as well as of some other tribes of animals related to insects, may almost