ON ENTOMOLOGY. 47 



Study. It has been objected to by many, that it tends to withdraw the 

 mind from subjects of higher moment, that it cramps and narrows the 

 range of thought, and that it destroys or at least weakens the finer 

 creations of the fancy. Now we should allow this objection in its 

 fullest extent, and even be disposed to carry it further than is usually 

 done, if the collecting of specimens only, or as the French expres- 

 sively call them chips (Echantillons) be called a study. But the mere 

 collector is not and cannnot be justly considered as a naturalist ; and 

 taking the term naturalist in its enlarged sense, some distinguished in- 

 stances can be adduced in opposition to the objection. Charles James 

 Fox can be given as an illustrious example, and I may add the names of 

 some of our distinguished poets, Goldsmith, Thompson, Gray, and 

 Darwin, who were all enthusiastic naturalists. It may be new to some 

 who are familiar with the elegy in a country church yard, to be told 

 that its author was at the pains to turn the characteristics of the Linnscan 

 order of insects into Latin Hexameters ; the manuscript of which is 

 still preserved in his interleaved copy of the Systema Naturae. Further, 

 to use the words of Kirby and Spence, whose work on Entomology is 

 one of the most instructing and pleasing books on the Science, Aristotle 

 among the Greeks, and Pliny the elder among the Romans, may be 

 denominated the fathers of Natural History, as well as the greatest 

 philosophers of their day ; yet both these made insects a principal object 

 of their attention. In more recent times, if we look abroad, what 

 names are greater than those of Redi, Malpighi, Vallisnieri, Swammer- 

 dam, Leeuwenhoek, Reaumur, Linnaeus, De Geer, Bonnet and the 

 Hubers ; and at home, what philosophers have done more good to their 

 country and to human nature, than Ray, Willoughby, Lister, and 

 Derham ; yet all these made the study of insects one of their most 

 favorite pursuits. A collection of insects is to the true naturalist, 

 what a collection of medals is to the accurate student of history. The 

 mere collector, who looks only to the shining wings of the one, or the 

 green rust of the other, derives little knowledge from his pursuit j but 

 the cabinet of the Entomologist becomes rich in the most interesting 

 subjects of contemplation, when he regards it in the genuine spirit of 

 scientific inquiry. What, for instance, can be so delightful as to examine 

 the wonderful variety of structure in this portion of the creation, and 

 above all to trace the beautiful gradations by which one species runs 

 into another. Their differences are so minute, that an unpractised eye 

 would proclaim their identity, and yet when the species are separated, 

 and not very distantly, they become visible even to the common observer. 

 It is in examinations such as these, that the naturalist finds a delight 

 of the highest order. While it is thus one of the legitimate objects of 

 his study to attend to minute differences of structure, form and colour- 

 ing, he is not less interested in the investigation of habits and economy, 

 and in this respect the insect world is inexhaustibly rich. We find 

 herein examples of instinct to parallel those of all the larger animals, 



