PREFACE 



THE FIRST EDITION, 1815. 



One principal cause of the little attention paid to Entomology in this 

 country has doubtless been the ridicule so often thrown upon the science. 

 The botanist, sheltered now by the sanction of fashion, as formerly by 

 the prescriptive union of his study with medicine, may dedicate his hours 

 to mosses and lichens without reproach ; but in the minds of most men, 

 the learned as well as the vulgar, the idea of the trifling nature of his 

 pursuit is so strongly associated with that of the diminutive size of its 

 objects, that an Entomologist is synonymous with every thing futile and 

 childish. Now, when so many other roads to fame and distinction are 

 open, when a man has merely to avow himself a botanist, a mineralogist, 

 or a chemist, a student of classical literature, or of political economy, to 

 insure attention and respect, there are evidently no great attractions to 

 lead him to a science which, in nine companies out of ten with which he 

 may associate, promises to signalize him only as an object of pity or con- 

 tempt. Even if he have no other aim than self-gratification, yet " the 

 sternest stoic of us all wishes at least for some one to enter into his views 

 and feelings, and confirm him in the opinion which he entertains of him- 

 self:" but how can he look for sympathy in a pursuit unknown to the 

 world, except as indicative of littleness of mind ? 



Yet such are the genuine charms of this branch of the study of nature, 

 that here as well as on the Continent, where, from being equally slighted. 

 Entomology now divides the empire with her sister Botany, this obstacle 

 would not have been sufficient to deter numbers from the study, had not 

 another more powerful impediment existed, — the want of a popular and 

 comprehensive Introduction to the science. While elementary books on 

 Botany have been multiplied amongst us without end and in every shape, 

 Curtis's translation of the Fundamenta Entomologia, published in 1772, 

 1* 



