APPENDIX. 5S3 



the other orders, a synopsis and ehxcidation of all the British genera (a grand 

 desideratum), various critical remarks, &c., would fully make up a second vo- 

 lume, if the first should be well received: and the interest of our pockets dis- 

 suades from risking too much at once. To the end of the volume I would add 

 a close-printed dictionary of terms, which would be useful for reference. The 

 above outline, you perceive, wants a deal of filling up; but this sketch is sufficient 

 to enable you to judge of the merits of the plan. I have thought a good deal 

 about it, and I am persuaded that some such plan, as far as making the work 

 attractive is concerned, will be infinitely preferable to any dry chapter- and - 

 verse bare enumeration of the parts of insects, like Yeats's, or even Linne's and 

 Fabricius's immortal ' Fundamenta ' and ' Philosophia.' Every body reads with 

 avidity anecdotes of the uses, injurious properties, habits, &c., of insects ; and 

 only admit your readers through such a vestibule, you will win numbers to the 

 science, who would have been deterred at the very threshold of mere technical 

 discussions. Indeed, I very much doubt whether fifty copies of a work of the 

 latter description would be sold ; of the former, I am sure, five hundred might. 

 As I look upon our ' Introduction ' scheme as determined on, ought we to lose 

 much more time in setting about it ? " 



Mr. Kirby's next letter to me is dated Feb. 13, 1809 : and after three 

 pages of remarks as to the expediency of retaining old and generally-used 

 names, even though strictly not proper (as niandibulae for maxillae), which 

 I had contended for, but to which he objected, he says towards the end of 

 the letter — 



" With respect to our copartnership, I do not think it is much concerned in 

 this argument, for as our terms must be English we should do no more than 

 mention the names of Latin v/riters. The plan of the work which you have 

 drawn up in your letter, upon the whole pleases me much. I see with you the 

 necessity of making it a popular work, and with a view to it, have been making 

 extracts from Latreille, and have got so forward as to have written a great 

 part of the Introductory letter containing a defence of Entomology from all the 

 objections that have been made to it. I think separate Letters should be al- 

 lotted to the injuries and benefits of insects, another to the wonderful particu- 

 lars of their history, and then the mode of collecting and preserving them. 

 But in my opinion the part that relates to terms should not be confined to Co- 

 leoptera, — it should take in all the oi'ders, for which I have materials prepared 

 from Latreille, whose Introduction will be a great help with respect to the 

 Crustacea and Aptera, which you and I perhaps know at present little of. I 

 want another term instead of terminology, which is a word of base origin, having 

 a Latin father and a Greek mother. Orismology, though new-born, is a le- 

 gitimate word, and I think would soon be received into good company, since 

 he deserves it as well as Orychtology, Ornithology, and many other children of 

 his mother Ko-yia 



" I have had a letter from my friend Marsham the other day, containing a 

 long philippic against our innovations, and the midtiplication of genera, in 

 which he seems to say that he gives up all intention of going I'urther in 

 ' Entomologia Britannica.' In my answer I gave him a further hint of our 

 intention, by saying that besides our Introduction to Entomology, we had an- 

 other plan in vie\V, which we hoped would tend to promote the sale of ' E. B.' 

 also, but that at present it was an unlicked cub, and therefore I should not say 

 what it was at present. ' Tis best to break the ice gradually ; for though he 

 ought not to be displeased at it, and our works do not interfere, yet I can 

 plainly see there is a little jealousy hanging about him. I have a great regard 

 for him, and you may observe in my Apion how tenderly I have treated him 



