384 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 



POPULAR AND ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 

 The Centenary of Ktrby and Spence's 



"An Introduction to Entomology. '' 



BY F. J. A. MORRIS, PETERBOROUGH, ONT. 



To fill the space, which has been kindly put at my service, 

 may I remind our brother entomologists that the current year is 

 the centenary of the first (and still the greatest) popular work in 

 English on Insects? In 1815 was published the first volume of 

 "An Introduction to Entomology," by William Kirby and 

 William Spence. 



It is no exaggeration to claim this work as effecting a revolu- 

 tion in Great Britain in the study of Natural History. As a science. 

 Entomology had already had its foundations well and truly laid 

 in the 17th century: in Europe, by masters like Malpighi, Swam- 

 merdam, Leeuwenhoek and Redi; in England, by Ray and Wil- 

 lughby. The bright examples of Reaumur and Linnaeus, Fabricius, 

 Latreille and the Hubers, sufficed in the 18th century to keep the 

 torch aflame, and reconcile a little band of devotees to labour 

 unrewarded by public recognition, and often the butt of ridicule 

 and oblocjuy. But no attempt was made, in English at least, to' 

 popularise the science. 



The Rev. William Kirby, father of modern British Entomology, 

 was a native of East Anglia. He began his work in Natural History 

 as a botanist, and his name appears among the chartered members 

 of the newly founded Linnean Society in 1788. He was at this 

 time in his 30th year, but having one day found, in his rambles 

 after plants, a very beautiful insect, he diverted his attention 

 to this new branch of Natural History. 



The first in the long list of his contributions to the Linnean 

 Society is dated 1793; in 1802 appeared his important monograph 

 on British Bees; in 1811 he established the Insect Order of Strep- 

 siptera, which still holds good ; and in 1812 (as a note in his common- 

 place book goes to show) he had identified what in his day was 

 considered a bee-louse, the triungulin or young larva of the Oil- 

 beetle. 



December, 1915. 



