12 OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



genera 1 , but also by noticing the different direction of the two anterior 

 from the four posterior legs of insects ; for, as he speaks of them as going 

 upon four legs 2 , it is evident that he considered the two anterior as arms, 

 i Solomon, the wisest of mankind, made Natural History a peculiar object 

 of study, and left treatises behind him upon its various branches, in which 

 creeping things or insects were not overlooked 3 ; and a wiser than Solomon 

 directs our attention to natural productions, when he bids us consider the 

 lilies of the field 4 , teaching us that they are more worthy of our notice 

 than the most glorious works of man : he also not obscurely intimates that 

 insects are symbolical beings, when he speaks of scorpions as synonymous 

 with evil spirits 5 ; thus giving into our hands a clue for a more profitable 

 mode of studying them, as furnishing moral and spiritual instruction. 



If to these scriptural authorities we add those of uninspired writers, 

 ancient and modern, the names of many worthies, celebrated both for 



\ wisdom and virtue, may be produced. 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 : and in more 

 recent times, if we look abroad, what names greater than those of Redi, 



'; Malpighi, Vallisnieri, Swammerdam, Leeuwenhoek, Reaumur, Linne, De 

 Geer, Bonnet, and the Hubers ? and at home, what philosophers have 

 done more honour to their country and to human nature than Ray, Wil- 

 loujrhby, Lister, 1 and Derham ? Yet all these made the study of insects one 

 of their most favourite pursuits; and, as if to prove that this study is not 

 incompatible with the highest flights of genius, we can add to the list the 

 name of one of the most sublime of our poets, Gray, who was very 

 zealously devoted to Entomology ; as were the celebrated modern artists, 

 Fuseli and Stothard, and that prodigy of talent, our Dr. Thomas Young, 

 one of whose first essays was upon the habits of spiders, and above all, 

 the immortal Cuvier, who began his career in this science, and retained 

 for it to the last a strong predilection. 6 As far, therefore, as names have . 



i Levit. xi. 21, 22. Lichtenstein in Linn. Trans, iv. 51, 52. 



Levit. xi. 20. conf. Bochart, Hierozoic. ii. 1. 4. c. 9. 497, 498. 



3 1 Kings, iv. 33. * Luke, xii. 27. i bid . x . 19, 20 . 



6 Several manuscript volumes of Cuvier's descriptions of insects, and beautifully 

 accurate figures by his own pen, begun to be written and drawn when he was but 

 seventeen years of age, and continued for five or six years following, still exist 

 (fac-similes of some of which have recently been published in Silbermann's Revue 

 Entomologique) ; and it was, as he himself avowed, the marvels which he discovered 

 in the organisation of insects which elevated his genius to the still higher concep- 

 tions which made him the first naturalist of the age. In acknowledging the honour 

 which the Entomological Society of France had conferred on him, in electing him 

 an honorary member, he thus expressed himself in his letter, dated, alas ! but a 

 fortnight before his death. " 1 should have been more worthy of the honour for- 

 merly, when in my } T outh this fine science occupied all my leisure moments, but if 

 other branches of natural history have not permitted me to give myself up to it with 

 the same ardour, I do not the less feel always the greatest interest in it." " If," said 

 he one day to his friend, Professor Audouin, " I had not studied insects when I was 

 at college from taste, I should, at a later period, from reason and necessity." For he 

 was convinced that the.habit of devoting the entire attention to the examination of 

 minute details, and the experience of the danger of falling into error the moment 

 this habit is deviated from, are most useful preliminaries to the study of the higher 

 animals, and to enable us to derive from it its most valuable fruits. "Are you an 

 entomologist?" he asked, one day in M. Audouin's presence, a young man who had 

 ventured to speak to him of some" remarkable peculiarity which he fancied he had 

 discovered iu dissecting a human subject. "No," replied the medical student. 



