PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The enthusiastic reception which " The Entomologist's 

 Annual" has met with, from all classes of Entomologists, 

 not only renders its continuance in future years a matter 

 of certainty, but has rendered it necessary to bring out a 

 Second Edition of that " for 1855." 



Of course, if the demand that has arisen for the book 

 could have been foreseen, a larger "first edition" would 

 have been printed, but, starting with so few data to go upon, 

 I was as much mistaken, in the probable success of the un- 

 dertaking, as were the originators of railroads respecting the 

 probable speed to be obtained by locomotive engines. 



The object of this Annual is to record systematically the 

 discoveries of each year. Every year new species are being 

 added to our Fauna, and that these should be systematically 

 chronicled is, in a science so vast as Entomology, of very 

 great importance. That this may be efficiently done, it is 

 essential that the writer, on each group or order of insects, 

 be selected from those best acquainted with the subject. 



The present volume contains only three Orders : the Le- 

 pidoptera, which, with the kind assistance of Mr. Double- 

 day and Mr. Douglas, I have worked up myself; the 

 Hymenoptera, for which no more able and thorough 

 writer can be found in England {if in Europe) than Mr. 

 Frederick Smith, one of the Assistants in the Zoologirai 



