VI PREFACE, 



to signalize him only as an object of pitj or 

 contempt. Even if he have no other aim than 

 self-gratification, yet " the sternest stoic of us 

 all wishes at least for some one to enter into his 

 views and feelings, and confirm him in the opi- 

 nion which he entertains of himself:" but how 

 can he look for sympathy in a pursuit unknown 

 to the world, except as indicative of littleness of 

 mind ? 



Yet such are the genuine charms of this branch 

 of the study of nature, that here as well as on the 

 continent, where, from being equally slighted. 

 Entomology now divides the empire with her 

 sister Botany, this obstacle would not have been 

 sufficient to deter numbers from the studj^, had 

 not another more powerful impediment existed — 

 the want of a popular and comprehensive Intro- 

 duction to the science. While elementary books 

 on Botany have been multiplied amongst us with- 

 out end and in every shape, Curtis's translation of 

 the Fundamenta Entomologies, published in 1772; 

 Yeats's Institutions of Entomology, which ap- 

 peared the year after ; and Barbut's Genera Insec- 

 torum, which came out in 1781 — the two former 

 in too unattractive, and the latter in too expen- 

 sive a form for general readers — are the only 

 works professedly devoted to this object, which 

 the English language can boast. 



