12 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



with every beauty and every grace, borne by radiant 

 wings through the fields of ether, and extracting nec- 

 tar from every flower, gives us some idea of the bless- 

 ed inhabitants of happier worlds, of angels, and of the 

 spirits of the just arrived at their state of perfection. 

 Again, other insects seem emblematical of a different 

 class of unearthly beings : when we behold some tre- 

 mendous for the numerous horns and spines projecting 

 in horrid array from their head or shoulders ; — others 

 for their threatening jaws of fearful length, and armed 

 with cruel fangs : when we survey the dismal hue and 

 demoniac air that distinguish others, the dens of dark- 

 ness in which they live, the impurity of their food, 

 their predatory habits and cruelty, the nets which 

 they spread, and the pits which they sink to entrap the 

 unwary, we can scarcely help regarding them as aptly 

 symbolizing evil demons, the enemies of man, or of im- 

 pure spirits for their vices and ci'imes driven from the 

 regions of light into darkness and punishments 



The sight indeed of a well-stored cabinet of insects 

 will bring before every beholder not conversant with 

 them, forms in endless variety, which before he would 

 not have thought it possible could exist in nature, re- 

 sembling nothing that the other departments of the 

 animal kingdom exhibit, and exceeding even the Avild- 

 est fictions of the most fertile imaginations. Besides 

 prototypes of beauty and symmetry, there in miniature 

 he will be amused to survey (for the most horrible 

 creatures when deprived of the power of injury become 



* This idea seems to have been present to the mind of Linne and Fa- 

 bricius, when they gave to insects such names as Behebub, Belial, Titan, 

 Typhorif Nimrod, Geryotiy and the like. 



