First edition: the rare hand-coloured edition with, among much of Pacific interest, two Australian "Bull Dog" ants figured for the first time on the handsome engraved plates.

First edition: the rare hand-coloured edition with, among much of Pacific interest, two Australian "Bull Dog" ants figured for the first time on the handsome engraved plates.

Pierre André Latreille (1762-1833) had entered the Paris Museum in 1799, and became Professor of Entomology on the death of Lamarck. He went on to publish a great number of important entomological books and articles, including several relating to other French voyages to the Pacific, and contributing the volume on insects to Cuvier's revolutionary Règne Animal of 1817. A memoir of Latreille, with a portrait, was published in Sir William Jardine's Naturalist's Library for 1841.

The present work is mainly, although not exclusively, a study of ants, with minor sections on bees and arachnids. Not only is Latreille's monograph one of the most significant early works on the species, but is of great significance because Formica gulosa and Formica forficata, both Australian species, are actually figured for the first time: after Roemer's Genera Insectorum, this is only the second work to include illustrations of Australian insects. Both of the specimens are included on plate VIII (pictured here).

For insects collected on the d'Entrecasteaux voyage, Latreille's work is preceded only by Fabricius's Systema Eleutheatorum (previous item), and there were two later Fabricius titles of 1803 and 1804 which also included significant notices relating to this important Pacific voyage. The only other contemporary notice of insects from the d'Entrecasteaux was a notice by Lamarck in the journal of the Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle for 1804.