130 The Natural History of Selborne 



destroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most 

 useful and important work. What knowledge there is of this 

 sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improve- 

 ments would soon follow of course. A knowledge of the 

 properties, economy, propagation, and in short of the life and 

 conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us 

 to some method of preventing their depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend ento- 

 mology more than some neat plates that should well express 

 the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; for 

 I am well assured that many people would study insects, 

 could they set out with a more adequate notion of those 

 distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone. 



