424 Hints for an Entomologia Rustica, 



farmers, gardeners, orchardists, foresters, intendaiits of cattle, 

 &c., to the knowledge we so much desire, and so certain to 

 avail us greatly, not only in a pecuniary relation (perhaps, the 

 least worthy regard of all the relations), but in the excellent 

 and best one of intellectual exercise, or mental gratification. 



The means by, and the mode in, which this could best be 

 done, is, we have thought, the production of a work which 

 should supply such information on the species of insects emi- 

 nently injurious, and those eminently beneficial, to rural in- 

 terests, as is supplied on the plants to which these qualities 

 appertain, in Martyn's Flora Rtistica (in which the species of 

 plants described and treated of are identified by figures), and 

 in Holditch's Essay on the Weeds of Agriculture, It may be 

 urged, that very much of the suggested information, and well- 

 nigh all that entomologists possess, has been already placed 

 on record by them, for the public benefit. This may be true ; 

 but it is also true that the places of record are too various, and 

 the access to the whole of them a matter too consumptive of 

 time and money, for many rural practitioners to indulge in. 

 It is needless to remark, that every technicality which could 

 be spared, should be kept out of such a work ; and the more 

 nearly it could be written in the phraseology of ordinary life, 

 it would be, we think, so much the better. Should woodcuts 

 be deemed sufficient (to spare coloured figures) for the pur- 

 pose of identifying each species, they would be much to be 

 preferred, as being introducible amongst the text, and thus to 

 be viewed at once without the distraction of a distant reference. 

 In the descriptive matter, it would be well to indicate what 

 facts require to be confirmed by additional testimony, and 

 what points in the economy of each insect remain yet to be 

 explored ; and thus the practical man, in appropriating the 

 researches of the entomologist, might be induced to return the 

 result of his own, and might, while he appropriated the fruit 

 of the researches of the entomologist, be instigated to institute 

 others for himself, and to contribute the result of them to the 

 general store. The publication of Notes on such a work 

 would, it is possible, be scarcely less common than Notes on 

 White's Selbor7ie; and, out of each of them, something of truth 

 and means of completeness would surely be acquirable. 

 Neither can it be fallacious or ungratifying to presume that 

 such a work would tend very much indeed to the extension 

 of the studying of insects in an entomological manner. Every 

 accurately represented and described species would make 

 known one of a certain type of form and structure, and lead 

 the way to assimilation and association. Under the descrip- 

 tion of each of the species, something of the leading points of 

 affinity might perhaps be guardedly hinted. — J, D, 



