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REMARKS ON INSECTS, PICTORIAL AND POETICAL. 



BY EDWIN LEES, M. E. S., 



HONORAUT CURATOR OF THE WORCKSTBRSHIRK NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETT.* 



Scientific opinions and systematic arrangements are for learned 

 bodies and purely scientific men j we have our choice, then — to 

 mount up into the clouds, beyond mortal ken, alone in our sub- 

 limity — or to be contented with the less dangerous though lower 

 station of the green earth. In other words, our language must be 

 adapted solely for the initiated in the mysteries of science, or we 

 must take the trouble, if we wish the audience of the world, to 

 speak a language the world can understand. Hence the propriety 

 of employing those popular illustrations that might otherwise be 

 considered as fanciful or puerile. Mr. Newman, as if in despair of 

 producing a favourable impression in behalf of entomology, rather 

 forbiddingly states that " the collector of insects must make up his 

 mind to sink in the opinion of his friends, and be the object of the 

 undisguised pity and ridicule of the mass of mankind."t I must 

 confess, if this were really the case, I should feel inclined, like the 

 blue-bottle fly, in November, to seek some comfortable cranny, 

 safe ensconced behind my books and cases, where ** good-natured 

 friends" were not very likely to lay their hands upon me. In 

 short, I should not by my buzzing give any tokens of my existence, 

 but remain as quiet and snug as possible. As for a good-humoured 

 laugh, we must expect it in this world, let our pursuits be what 

 they may j but I can scarcely think that the entomologist has a 

 greater load of obloquy to bear upon his shoulders than the devo- 

 tees of other sciences — unless, indeed, he does as Peter Pindar 

 makes Sir Joseph Banks do — break into a garden, and upset the 

 gardener, glasses, flowers, hives, &c., in pursuit of an emperor 

 butterfly. Some old stories, in the "Spectator," of legacies of 

 grasshopper's legs and butterfly's wings, perhaps seem to make 

 against us, and some " Saw-flies" of the present dayj occasionally 

 attempt an impotent stroke. But these are " trifles light as air," 

 no more needing serious attention than the game at tick which the 

 merry flies amuse themselves with, and which they get up so early 

 in the summer time to practise around the curtains of our bed, or 

 circling about the ceiling. Some flies seem not to relish the liberty 



* Having recently delivered a Lecture on the " Connection of Botany with Ento- 

 molog}'," before the Worcestershire Natural History Society, in which I traced the 

 Physiology and Economy of the Insect Tribes, I was requested to furnish the Editor 

 of " The Analyst" with my notes, for an entire Report. But in such a form the 

 paper would be too long ; and perhaps, therefore, extracts from the more illustrative 

 part will be considered most interesting. 



t "Grammar of Entomology." By Edward Newman. 



X See a curious paper that appeared a few months since in the " Dublin Univer- 

 sity Magazine," on the pretended introduction of a new large variety of the Flea. 



