lO INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



he has done great injury to it, in others he has 

 certainly contributed much to its advancement. 



But let us leave these general observations, and 

 turn our attention to the class, of which we propose 

 to give some account. It is curious, and not al- 

 together unprofitable, to trace science from the 

 cradle to its manhood, and pursue it through all its 

 intermediate advances. Before I begin, therefore, 

 with what Linneus, his disciples, and successors 

 have effected, I shall give a short view of what had 

 been done, in the Hymenoptera class, by the pre- 

 decessors of that illustrious naturalist. If I mistake 

 not, our own country had the honour of paving the 

 way for the system of Linneus. A brilliant con- 

 stellation of geniuses arose towards the close of the 

 seventeenth century, who diffused new light over 

 every department of natural history, and were the 

 harbingers of that bright day, which the labours of 

 the great Swedish naturalist have caused to dawn 

 upon the three kingdoms of nature. In this 

 constellation, the stars of the first magnitude and 

 brightest lustre were John Ray, that glory of Eng- 

 land, Dr. Martin Lister, and Francis Willughby, 

 Esq. These great Men, by their separate and 

 joint labours, prepared the materials for the present 

 improved state of Natural History. 



Before their time, some kind of form had been 

 given to entomology by their predecessors, and the 

 foundations of the class in question, rude indeed and 



imperfect. 



