4 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



the botanist could not hope to find even a new lichen or moss, by the 

 appearance of several insects, driven there perhaps by ihe same cause as 

 yourself, that you have not observed before. But should you, as I trust you 

 will, feel a desire to attend to the manners and economy of insects, and 

 become ambitious of making discoveries in this part of entomological 

 science, I can assure you, from long experience, that you will here find an 

 inexhaustible fund of novelty. For more than twenty years my attention 

 has been directed to them, and during most of my summer walks my eyes 

 have been employed in observing their ways ; yet I can say with truth, 

 that so far from having exhausted the subject, within the last six months 

 I have witnessed more interesting facts respecting, their history than in 

 many preceding years. To follow only the insects that frequent your own 

 garden, from their first to their last state, and to trace all their proceed- 

 ings, would supply an interesting amusement for the remainder of your 

 life, and at its close you would leave much to be done by your successor ; 

 for where we know thoroughly the history of one insect, there are hun- 

 dreds concerning which we have ascertained little besides the bare fact of 

 their existence. 



But numerous other sources of pleasure and information will open them- 

 selves to you, not inferior to what any other science can furnish, when 

 you enter more deeply into the study. Insects, indeed, appear to have 

 been nature's favourite productions, in which, to manifest her power and 

 skill, she has combined and concentrated almost all that is either beau- 

 tiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious and singular, in every 

 other class and order of her children. To these, her valued miniatures, 

 she has given the most delicate touch and highest finish of her pencil. 

 Numbers she has armed with glittering mail, which reflects a lustre like 

 that of burnished metals 1 ; in others she lights up the dazzling radiance of 

 polished gems. 2 Some she has decked with what looks like liquid drops, 

 or plates of gold and silver 3 ; or with scales or pile, which mimic the 

 colour and emit the ray of the same precious metals. 4 Some exhibit a 

 rude exterior, like stones in their native state 5 , while others represent 

 their smooth and shining face after they have been submitted to the tool of 

 the polisher : others, again, like so many pigmy Atlases bearing on their 

 backs a microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and depressions 

 of (heir tuberculated' crust, present to the eye of the beholder no unapt 

 imitation of the unequal surface of the earth, now horrid with mis-shapen 

 rocks, ridges, and precipices now swelling into hills and mountains, and 

 now sinking into valleys, glens, and caves 6 ; while not a few are covered 

 with branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees. 7 



What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various beau- 

 ties ! some in the delicacy and variety of their colours, colours not like 



1 The genera Eumolpus, Lamprima, Eynchites. 



8 Cryptorhynchus corruscans. Germar (Insect. Spec. Nov. i. 216.) regards this 

 insect as synonymous with Illiger's Eurhinus cupratus, the description of which 

 I had not seen when the Century of Insects (Linn. Trans, xii.) was written, nor 

 am I able now to speak decisively on the subject. K. 



5 Erycina Cupido, Argynnis Passiftorae, Lathonia, &C. 



4 Pepsis fuscipennis, argentata, &c. 



5 The species of the genus Trox. 



* Many of the Scarabceida, Dynastidee, &c. 



7 Many caterpillars of Butterflies (Merian, Surinam, t. xxii. xxv. &C.) and of 

 Sawflies (Return, v. t. xii. f. 7, 814.). 



