VIU PREFACE. 



In accordance with these views the author has written 

 the following pages; he supposes his reader utterly 

 ignorant of Entomology, and endeavours to show him 

 that it is the History of Insects, and the Art of Pre- 

 serving Insects, and the Physiology of Insects, and the 

 Classification of Insects : he does not address himself 

 to the professed Entomologist; to such this work will 

 be of little value. 



The First Book, entitled History of Insects, is a 

 complete compilation ; a series of histories copied, in 

 many instances verbatim, from the accounts of those 

 authors who relate what themselves have witnessed. 

 Objections will probably be raised to this plan, but the 

 author thinks without reason. What good pui*pose 

 would have been answered, had he so curtailed, trans- 

 posed, and altered these histories, that their very authors 

 should not have knoTNTi them ? On the contrary, is 

 there not a good pui'pose answered in collecting to- 

 gether the most interesting observations of Huber, 

 Smeathman, Rusticus, Kirby, Spence, Clark, Fries, 

 and Bevan ? No concealment is attempted : the au- 

 thority for each history is given, except when dependent 

 on the author's own observation, and thus the respon- 

 sibility is removed from the compiler. 



