128 The Natural History of Selborne 



wants to be collected ; great improvements would soon follow 

 of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy, propagation, 

 and in short of the life and conversation of these animals, is a 

 necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing their 

 depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology 

 more than some neat plates that should well express the generic 

 distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; for I am well assured 

 that many people would study insects, could they set out with a 

 more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at 

 first by words alone. 



