INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 13 



be amused to survey (for the most horrible creatures 

 when deprived of the power of injury become sources of 

 interest and objects of curiosity), to use the words of our 

 great poet, 



all prodigious things 



Abominable, unutterable, and worse 



Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, 



Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire. 



But the pleasures of a student of the science to which 

 I am desirous of introducing you, are far from being 

 confined to such as result from an examination of the 

 exterior form and decorations of insects : for could these, 

 endless as they seem, be exhausted, or, wonderful as 

 they are, lose their interest, yet new sources, exuberant 

 in amusement and instruction, may be opened, which 

 will furnish an almost infinite fund for his curiosity to 

 draw upon. The striking peculiarity and variety of 

 structure which they exhiLd- in their instruments of nu- 

 trition, motion, and oviposition ; in their organs of sen- 

 sation, generation, and the great fountains of vitality, 

 indeed their whole system, anatomically considered, will 

 open a world of wonders to you with which you will not 

 soon be satiated, and during your survey of which you 

 will at every step feel disposed to exclaim with the Ro- 

 man naturalist " In these beings so minute, and as it 

 were such non-entities, what wisdom is displayed, what 

 power, what unfathomable perfection a ! " But even this 

 will not bring you to the end of your pleasures : you 

 must leave the dead to visit the living; you must behold 

 insects when full of life and activity, engaged in their 

 several employments, practising their various arts, pur- 



8 Plin. Hist. Nat. I I I.e. 2. 



