Vill PREFACE. 
a Cabinet, with any pretension to possess this tribe, without 
finding something new. This is an additional inducement 
to collect, for the stimulus to exertion is increased by the 
prospect of making discoveries, thereby extending our 
knowledge of Nature and of her productions. Every 
species is an important link in the great chain, without 
which its consecution is necessarily broken. The futility 
of all theories of natural arrangement is therefore self- 
evident, until we shall possess an absolutely perfect know- 
ledge of species; for even the most elaborate, and. best 
conceived, may, by the introduction of a new creature, 
be totally subverted. 
Another inducement to attend to these insects may be 
urged in the exceedingly interesting nature of their economy, 
and the peculiarities of their structure. Amongst them ex- 
clusively, at least with but one exception, we find social 
tribes governed by a peculiar polity, and they appear gene- 
rally gifted with an instinct very superior to that of the 
adjacent groups: and with respect to their structure, as in 
the works of the Omniscient Artist, the means are always 
fitted to the end, it consequently follows, that where we 
find a complexity and peculiarity ef habits and economy, 
we invariably discover the organs adapted. 
This work, however, embraces only a portion of the tribe. 
I originally intended it to comprise solely the fossorial 
