INTRODUCTION. 3 



demonstration of His power whose band formed tliem, for 

 the wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived in that 

 which is of little size. He who has stretched out the 

 heavens, and dng up the bottom of the sea, is also He who 

 has pierced a passage through the sting of the bee for the 

 ejection of its poison," 



If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the 

 most satisfactory of hnman pleasures, then we may without 

 hesitation affirm, that the study of insects is one of the most 

 delightful branches of natural history, for it aftbrds peculiar 

 facilities for its pursuit. These facilities are found in the 

 almost inexhaustible variety which insects present to the 

 curious observer. As a proof of the extraordinary number 

 of insects within a limited field of observation, Mr. Stephens 

 informs us, that in the short space of forty days, between 

 the middle of June and the beginning of August, he found, 

 in the vicinity of Ripley, specimens of above two thousand 

 four hundred species of insects exclusive of caterpillars and 

 grubs, — a number amounting to nearly a fourth of the 

 insects ascertained to be indigenous. He further tells us, 

 that, among these specimens, although the ground had, in 

 former seasons, been frequently explored, there were about 

 one hundred species altogether new, and not before in any 

 collection which he had inspected, including several new 

 genera; while many insects reputed scarce were in con- 

 siderable plenty.* The localities of insects are, to a certain 

 extent, constantly changing ; and thus the study of them 

 has, in thi^ circumstance, as well as in their manifold 

 abundance, a source of perpetual variety. Insects, also, 

 which are ^^leiitiful one year, frequently become scarce, or 

 disappear altogether, the next — a fact strikingly illustrated 

 by the uncommon abundance, in 1826 and 1827, of the 

 seven-spot lady-bird ( Coccinella septempunctata) , in the vicinity 

 of London, though during the two succeeding summers this 

 insect was comparatively scarce, while the small two-spot 

 lady -bird (^Coccinella hipunctata) was plentiful. 



There is, perhaps, no situation in which the lover of 

 nature and the observer of animal life may not find oppor- 

 * Stephens' Illustrations, vol. i., p. 72, note. 



