PREFACE. 



THE following Essays have been written, not with a view of 

 teaching Entomology as a science, but of affording such a 

 measure of acquaintance with the habits of the Insect world, 

 as may serve to promote the ulterior and more useful design 

 of cultivating the rudimental seeds of systematic investigation. 

 For this, with many, sufficient leisure, fitting residence, and 

 other appliances may be wanting, but few can entirely lack 

 opportunity for becoming more observant of Nature's wonders, 

 more impressible to her influences and her teachings, or 

 more alive to the superior intelligence visible in her works. 

 On nothing, perhaps, are the signs of that intelligence more 

 obviously impressed than on the operations of Insects, which, 

 as creatures pre-eminently under the rule of instinct, attest 

 as pre-eminently that 



' The mind which guides them is divine." 



