PREFACE. XI 



the attractive portal of the economy and natural 

 history of its objects. To this department, there- 

 fore, they resolved to devote the first and most con- 

 siderable portion of their intended work, bringing 

 into one point of view, under distinct heads, the 

 most interesting discoveries of Reaumur, De Geer, 

 Bonnet, Lyonet, the Hubers, &c., as well as their 

 own individual observations, relative to the nox- 

 ious and beneficial properties of insects ; their af- 

 fection for their young ; their food, and modes of 

 obtaining it; their habitations ; societies; &c. &c. : 

 and they were the more induced to adopt this plan, 

 from the consideration, that, though many of the 

 most striking of these facts have before been pre- 

 sented to the English reader, a great proportion 

 are unknown to him ; and that no similar gene- 

 ralization (if a slight attempt towards it in Smel- 

 lie's Philosophy of Natural History, and a confes- 

 sedly imperfect one in Latreille's Histoire Natu- 

 relle des Crustaces et des Insectes be excepted) 

 has ever been attempted in any language. Thus 

 the entire work would be strictly on the plan of 

 the Philosophia Entomologica of Fabricius, only 

 giving a much greater extent to the (Economic* and 

 Usus, and adverting to these in the first place in- 

 stead of in the last. 



The epistolary form was adopted, not certainly 

 from any idea of their style being particularly 



