OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 23 



hoppers, crickets &c. (Gryllus, L.) into different genera a , 

 but also by noticing the different direction of the two 

 anterior from the four posterior legs of insects ; for, as 

 he speaks of them as going upon four legs b , it is evident 

 that he considered the two anterior as arms. Solomon, 

 the wisest of mankind, made Natural History a peculiar 

 object of study, and left treatises behind him upon its 

 various branches, in which creeping things or insects 

 were not overlooked ; and a wiser than Solomon directs 

 our attention to natural productions, when he bids us 

 consider the lilies of the field d , teaching us that they are 

 more worthy of our notice than the most glorious works 

 of man : he also not obscurely intimates that insects are 

 symbolical beings, when he speaks of scorpions as sy- 

 nonymous with evil spirits 6 ; thus giving into our hands 

 a clue for a more profitable mode of studying them, as 

 furnishing moral and spiritual instruction. 



If to these scriptural authorities we add those of un- 

 inspired writers, ancient and modern, the names of many 

 worthies, celebrated both for wisdom and virtue, may be 

 produced. Aristotle among the Greeks, and Pliny the 

 elder among the Romans, may be denominated the fa- 

 thers of Natural History, as well as the greatest philo- 

 sophers of their day ; yet both these made insects a prin- 

 cipal object of their attention : and in more recent times, 

 if we look abroad, what names greater than those of 

 Redi, Malpighi, Vallisnieri, Swammerdarn, Leeuwen- 

 hoek, Reaumur, Linne, De Geer, Bonnet, and the 

 Hubers? and at home, what philosophers have done 



a Levit. xi. 21, 22. Lichtenstein in Linn. Trans, iv. 51, 52. 

 b Levit. xi. 20. conf. Bochart. Hierozoic. ii. 1. 4. c. 9. 497-8. 

 1 Kings iv. 33. d Luke xii. 27. e Ibid. x. 19, 20. 



