32 



JANUARY. 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



The time is past when the study of the names 

 and natures of insects required an apology. 

 To assert that they are things too insignificant 

 for the notice of human beings,, is to confess an 

 ignorance of himself, of the world in which he 

 lives, and of the God who made both him and 

 it, that no one now will suffer himself, for a 

 moment, to be suspected of. What the great 

 God has condescended to make, can it be a 

 degradation for " man, who is but a worm," to 

 know and consider? Arguments drawn from 

 the mere bulk of objects, go only to prove that 

 giants, mammoths, and elephants are the most 

 estimable and important things in the world, 

 and that man himself is comparatively of little 

 moment. These reasonings, therefore, which 

 at one time furnished the witling with much 

 merriment at the expense of the naturalist, 

 have vanished, as they were sure to do: but 

 much as Entomology is now esteemed, it re- 

 quires no prophet to see that it must become 

 more and more so. So say nothing of the 

 benefits or inconveniences we experience from 

 insects ; there are in their minute shapes such 



