358 



Chapter XIV. 



ON THE COLLECTION AND PRESERVATION OF INSECTS 

 FOR THE PURPOSES OF STUDY. 



" I COULD wish," says Addison, in * The Spectator,' 

 " our Royal Society would compile a body of natural 

 history, the best that could be gathered together from 

 books and observations. If the several writers among* 

 them took each his particular species, and gave us a 

 distinct account of its original, birth, and education; 

 its policies, hostilities, and alliances; with the frame 

 and texture of its inward and outward parts, — and 

 particularly those which distinguish it from all other 

 animals, — with their aptitudes for the state of being 

 in which Providence has placed them ; it would be 

 one of the best services their studies could do man- 

 kind, and not a little redound to the glory of the 

 All-wise Creator*." Now, though we can scarcely 

 consider Addison as a naturalist, in any of the usual 

 meanings of the term, it would be no easy task, even 

 for those who have devoted their undivided attention 

 to the subject, to improve upon the admirable plan of 

 study here laid down. It is, moreover, so especially 

 applicable to the investigation of insects, that it may 

 be more or less put in practice by any person who 

 chooses, in whatever station or circumstances he hap- 

 pens to be placed. Nay, we will go farther; for since 

 it agrees with experience and many recorded instances 

 that individuals have been enabled to investigate and 

 elucidate particular facts, who were quite unacquainted 

 with systematic natural history, we hold it to be un- 

 * Spectator, No. 111. 



