xvi PREFACE. 



invaluable for its accuracy and completeness, they would be pro- 

 vided in their old age with an object capable not merely of 

 keeping off that tcedium vita so often inseparable from the relin- 

 quishment of active life, but of supplying an unfailing fund of 

 innocent amusement, an incentive to exercise, and, consequently, 

 no mean degree of health and enjoyment. 



Some, who, with an ingenious author *, regard as superfluous 

 all pains to show the utility of Natural History in reference to the 

 common purposes of life, asking, " if it be not enough to open a 

 source of copious and cheap amusement, which tends to harmonise 

 the mind, and elevate it to worthy conceptions of nature and its 

 Author ? if a greater blessing to a man can be offered than 

 happiness at an easy rate, unalloyed by any debasing mixture ? " 

 may think the earnestness displayed on this head, and the length 

 which has been gone in refuting objections, needless. But Entomo- 

 logy is so peculiarly circumstanced, that, without removing these 

 obstacles, there could be no hope of winning votaries to the pursuit. 

 Pliny felt the necessity of following this course in the outset of his 

 book which treats on insects ; and a similar one has been originally 

 called for in introducing the study even to those countries where 

 the science is now most honoured. In France, Reaumur, in each 

 of the successive volumes of his immortal work, found it essential 

 to seize every opportunity of showing that the study of insects is 

 not a frivolous amusement, nor devoid of utility, as his countrymen 

 conceived it ; and in Germany, Sulzer had to traverse the same road, 

 telling us, in proof of the necessity of this procedure, that on show- 

 ing his works on insects w'ith their plates to two very sensible men, 

 one commended him for employing his leisure hours in preparing 

 prints that would amuse children and keep them out of mischief, 

 and the other admitted that they might furnish very pretty patterns 

 for ladies' aprons ! And though in this country things are not now 

 quite so bad as they were when Lady Glanville's will was attempted 

 to be set aside on the ground of lunacy, evinced by no other act than 

 her fondness for collecting insects ; and Ray had to appear at Exeter 

 on the trial as a witness of her sanity f ; yet nothing less than 

 line upon line can be expected to eradicate the deep-rooted preju- 



* Dr. Aikin. f See Harris's Aurdian under Papilio Cinxia. 



