PREFACE. 



collectors of insects, nor that young people, to 

 the neglect of more important duties and pursuits, 

 should generally become professed Entomolo- 

 gists ; but, if the former be familiarized with 

 their names, manners, and economy, and the lat- 

 ter initiated into their classification, it will be an 

 excellent method of strengthening their habits of 

 observation, attention, and memory, equal per- 

 haps, in this respect, to any other mental exercise : 

 and then, like Major Gyllenhal, who studied En- 

 tomology under Thunberg about 1770, and after 

 an interval of twenty years devoted to the service 

 of his country, resumed his favourite pursuit with 

 all the ardour of youth, and is at this time giving 

 to the world a description of the insects of Swe- 

 den invaluable for its accuracy and completeness 

 they would be provided in their old age with 

 an object capable not merely of keeping off that 

 tczdium vit(E so often inseparable from the relin- 

 quishment of active life, but of supplying an un- 

 failing fund of innocent amusement, an incentive 

 to exercise, and consequently no mean degree of 

 health and enjoyment. 



Some, who, with an ingenious author*, regard 

 as superfluous all pains to show the utility of Na- 

 tural History in reference to the common pur- 



* Dr. Aikin. 

 1)2 



