INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 7 



trust you will, feel a desire to attend to the manners 

 and economy of insects, and become ambitious of making 

 discoveries in this part of entomological science, I can 

 assure you, from long experience, that you will here 

 find an inexliaustiblc fund of novelty. For more than 

 twenty years my attention has been directed to them, 

 and duiing most of my summer walks my eyes have 

 been employed in observing their ways; yet I can say 

 with truth, that so far from having exhausted the sub- 

 ject, within the last six months I have w itnessed more 

 interesting facts respecting their history than in many 

 preceding years. To follow only the insects that fi-e- 

 quent your own garden, from their first to their last 

 state, and to trace all their proceedings, would supply 

 an interesting amusement for the remainder of your life, 

 and at its close you would leave much to be done by your 

 successor; for where we know thoroughly the history 

 of one insect, there are hundreds concerning which we 

 have ascertained little besides the bare fact of their 

 existence. 



But numerous other sources of pleasure and informa- 

 tion will open themselves to you, not inferior to what 

 any other science can furnish, when you enter more 

 deeply into the study. Insects, indeed, appear to have 

 been nature's favourite productions, in which, to mani- 

 fest her power and skill, she has combined and concen- 

 trated almost all that is either beautiful and graceful, 

 interesting and alluring, or curious and singular, in 

 every other class and order of her children. To these, 

 her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate 

 touch and highest finish of her pencil. Numbers she has 

 armed with glittering mail, which reflects a lustre like 



