INTTtODUCTORY LETTEH. 13 



sources of interest and objects of curiosity), to use the 

 words of our great poet, 



all prodigious things 



Abominable, uiuittcrablc, ami worse 



Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, 



Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire. 



But the pleasures of a student of the science to which 

 I am desirous of introducing you, are far from being 

 confined to such as result from an examination of the 

 exterior form and decorations of insects ; for could 

 these, endless as they seem, be exhausted, or, wonder- 

 ful as they are, lose their interest, yet new sources, 

 exuberant in amusement and instruction, may be open- 

 ed, which will furnish an almost infinite fund for his 

 curiosity to draw upon. The striking peculiarity and 

 variety of structure which they exhibit in tlieir instru- 

 ments of nutrition, motion, and oviposition, in their 

 organs of sensation, generation, and the great fountains 

 of vitality, indeed tlieir whole system, anatomically 

 considered, will open a world of wonders to you with 

 which you will not soon be satiated, and during your 

 survey of which you will at every step feel disposed to 

 exclaim with the Roman naturalist — " In these beings 

 so minute, and as it were such non-entities, what wis- 

 dom is displayed, what power, what unfathomable per- 

 fection ""r' But even this will not bring you to the 

 end of your pleasures : you must leave the dead to visit 

 the living ; you must behold insects when full of life 

 and activity, engaged in their several employments, 



* Plin. Hist. Nut. 1. 11. c. 2. 



