Introduction. 3 



destined purposes. " If you speak of a stone," says St. Basil, 

 one of the Fathers of the Church, " if you speak of a fly, a 

 gnat, or a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstra- 

 tion of His power whose hand formed them, for the wisdom 

 of the workman is commonly perceived in that which is of 

 little size. He who has stretched out the heavens, and 

 dug up the bottom of the sea, is also He who has pierced a 

 passage through the sting of the bee for the ejection of its 

 poison." 



If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most 

 satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may without hesita- 

 tion affirm,, that the study of insects is one of the most 

 delightful branches of natural history, for it affords peculiar 

 facilities for its pursuit. These facilities are found in the 

 almost inexhaustible variety which insects present to the 

 curious observer. As a proof of the extraordinary number of 

 insects within a limited field of observation, Mr. Stephens 

 informs us, that in the short space of forty days, between the 

 middle of June and the beginning of August, he found, in 

 the vicinity of Eipley, specimens of above two thousand four 

 hundred species of insects, exclusive of caterpillars and grubs, 

 a number amounting to nearly a fourth of the insects 

 ascertained to be indigenous. He further tells us, that, 

 among these specimens, although the ground had, in former 

 seasons, been frequently explored, there were about one 

 hundred species altogether new, and not before in any 

 collection which he had inspected, including several new 

 genera ; while many insects reputed scarce were in con- 

 siderable plenty.* The localities of insects are, to a certain 

 extent, constantly changing ; and thus the study of them has, 

 in this circumstance, as well as in their manifold abundance, 

 a source of perpetual variety. Insects, also, which are 

 plentiful one year, frequently become scarce, or disappear 

 altogether, the next a fact strikingly illustrated by the 

 uncommon abundance, in 1826 and 1827, of the seven-spot 

 lady-bird (Coccinetta septernpunctata), in the vicinity of London, 

 though during the two succeeding summers this insect was 



* Stephens' Illustrations, vol. i., p. 72, note. 



