OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 53 



tletermlned the order and genus of the insect, and 

 whether it Avas a known or new species ; and in a 

 twelvemontls at furthest he would have ascertained in 

 what manner it made its attacks, and whether it were 

 possible that it might be transmitted along with grain 

 into a foreign country : and on these solid data he 

 could have satisfactorily pointed out the best mode of 

 eradicating the pest, or preventing the extension of its 

 ravages. 



But it is not tiicrely in travellers and popular ob- 

 servers that the want of a systematic knowledge of 

 Entomology is so deplorable. A great portion of the 

 labours of the profoundest naturalists have been from 

 a similar cai>"ie lost to the Avorld. Many of the insects 

 concerning which Reaumur and Bonnet have recorded 

 the most interesting circumstances, cannot, from their 

 neglect of system, be at this day ascertained''. The 

 former, as Beckmann'' states on the authority of his 

 letters, was before his death sensible of his great error 

 in this respect : but Bonnet, with singular inconsist- 

 ency, constantly maintained the inutility of system, 

 even on an occasion when, from his ignorance of it, 

 Sir James Smith, speaking of his experiments on the 

 barberry, found it quite impossible to make him com- 

 prehend what plant he referred to''. 



So great is the importance of a systematic arrange- 

 ment of insects. Yet no such arrangement has hither- 

 to been completed. Various fragments towards it in- 



* No one knew I{eaumiir's AbdUe Tapissiere. until Latrrille, happily 

 combining system with attention to the economy of insects, proved it to 

 be a new species — his MegacMle Papaveris. — Hist, de Fourmis, 'i97. 



^ Bibliofhek. vii. 310. " Tour on the Continent, iii. 150. 



