VI PREFACE. 



kind are exhibited in such a variety of forms, that 

 the inquirer finds himself lost in the exuberance 

 before him, and, like a man who attempts to count 

 the stars unassisted by art, his powers are all dis- 

 tracted in barren superfluity. 



To remedy this embarrassment, artificial systems 

 have been devised, which, grouping into masses 

 those parts of nature more nearly resembling each 

 other, refer the inquirer for the name of the single 

 object he desires to know, to some one of those 

 general distributions, where it is to be found by 

 further examination. 



If, for instance, a man should, in his walks, 

 meet with an animal, the name, and consequently 

 the history of which, he desires to know, he is 

 taught by systematic writers of natural history to 

 examine its most obvious qualities, whether a 

 quadruped, a bird, a fish, or an insect. Having 

 determined it, for explanation sake, to be an in- 

 sect, he examines whether it has wings ; if he 

 finds it possessed of these, he is taught to examine 

 whether it has two or four ; if possessed of four, 

 he is taught to observe, whether the two upper 

 wings are of a shelly hardness, and serve as cases 

 to those under them ; if he finds the wings com- 

 posed in this manner, he is then taught to pro- 

 nounce, that this insect is one of the beetle kind : 

 of the beetle kind, there are several different 

 families, distinguished from each other by their 

 antennae or horns : he examines the insect before 

 him, and finds that the horns are clavated or 

 knobbed at the ends ; of beetles, with the horns 

 thus formed, there are several kinds j and among 



