46 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



suit of truth, in whatever path, affords pleasure : but 

 the interest would cease if she never gave us trouble 

 in the chase. Horace Walpole used to say that from 

 a child he could never bring- himself to attend to any 

 book that was not full of proper names ; and the satis- 

 faction which he felt in dry investigations concerning^ 

 noble authors and obscure painters, is experienced by 

 many an entomologist who spends hours in disentan- 

 gling the synonymy of a doubtful species. Nor would 

 it be easy to prove that tlie wordy researches of the 

 one are not to every practical purpose as valuable as 

 those of the other. We smile at the Frenchman told 

 of by Manege, that was so enraptured with the study 

 of heraldry and genealogy, as to lament the hard case 

 of our forefather Adam, who could not possibly amuse 

 himself with such investigations^. But many an ento- 

 mologist who has felt the delicious sensation attendant 

 upon the indisputable ascertainment of an insect's 

 name after a long search, will feel inclined to indulge 

 in similar grief for the unhappy lot of his successors, 

 when all shall be smooth sailing in the science. 



But in behalf of those who are more eminently en- 

 titled to be called entomologists — those who, not con- 

 tent with collecting and investigating insects, occupy 

 themselves in naming and depcribing such as have beeji 

 before unobserved; in instituting new genera or re- 

 forming the old ; and, to say all in one word, in per- 

 fecting the system of the science, still higher claims 

 can be urged. Suppose that at this moment our dic- 

 tionaries of the French and German languages Avere so 

 very defective, that we were unable by the use of them 



" Andrews's ylnecdolcs, 152. 



