Xll PREFACE. 



suited to a mode of writing so difficult to keep 

 from running into incongruities : but simply be- 

 cause this form admitted of digressions and allu- 

 sions called for in a popular work, but which 

 might have seemed misplaced in a stricter kind 

 of composition ; — because it is better suited to 

 convey those practical directions, which in some 

 branches of the pursuit the student requires ; — • 

 and lastly, because by this form, the objection 

 against speaking of the manners and economy of 

 insects before entering upon the definition of 

 them, and explaining the terms of the science — a 

 retrograde course, which they have chosen from 

 their desire to present the most alluring side of 

 the science first — is in great measure, if not 

 wholly, obviated. 



Such is the plan which the authors chalked out 

 for themselves — a plan which in the execution 

 they have found so much more extensive than 

 they calculated upon, that, could they have fore- 

 seen the piles of volumes through which it has 

 entailed upon them the labour of wading, often 

 to glean scarcely more than a single fact — the 

 numerous anatomical and technological investiga- 

 tions which it has called for — and the long cor- 

 respondence, almost as bulky as the entire work, 

 unavoidably, rendered necessary by the distant 

 residence of the parties — they would have shrunk 



