Johann Christian Fabricius, a Danish entomologist, born in Tondern, Schleswig, Jan. 7, 1743, died in Kiel in 1807 or 1808. His academic studies were pursued at Copenhagen, Leyden, Edinburgh, and finally at Upsal, under Linnaeus. He was much attached to the great Swede, and has preserved many interesting details of his private life. He adopted Lin-naeus's method, and introduced a system of classifying insects by the parts which constitute the mouth. He took the degree of doctor of medicine about 1767, and was afterward appointed professor of natural history in the university of Kiel, where he wrote his Systema Entomologioe (1775), subsequently enlarged into Entomologia Systematica (4 vols. 8vo, Copenhagen, 1792-'4). He employed the remainder of his life in developing and perfecting it, and for this purpose made tours over different parts of Europe. His Genera Insectorum, (8vo, Kiel, 1777), Philosophia Ento-mologica (Hamburg, 1778), Species Insectorum (2 vols., 1781), Mantissa Insectorum (2 vols., Copenhagen, 1787), and other works show how complete and extended were his investigations in this branch of science.

He also published essays on botany and natural history, accounts of travels in Norway, Russia, and England, and a variety of treatises, historical, political, and economical, relating to Denmark, the latter being prepared by him in his capacity of councillor of state and professor of rural and political economy at Kiel. He died of grief, it is supposed, occasioned by the bombardment of Copenhagen, and the political misfortunes of Denmark.