APPENDIX. 585 



the other orders, a synopsis and elucidation of all the British genera (a grand 

 desideratum), various critical remarks, &c., would fully make up a second vo- 

 lume, if the first should be well received: and the interest of our pockets dis- 

 suades from risking too much at once. To the end of the volume I would add 

 a close-printed dictionary of terms, which would be useful for reference. The 

 above outline, you perceive, wants a deal of filling up; but this sketch is sufficient 

 to enable you to judge of the merits of the plan. I have thought a good deal 

 about it, and I am persuaded that some such plan, as far as making the work 

 attractive is concerned, will be infinitely preferable to any dry chapter-and- 

 verse bare enumeration of the parts of insects, like Yeats's, or even Linne's and 

 Fabricius's immortal 'Fundamenta ' and ' Philosophia. ' Every body reads with 

 avidity anecdotes of the uses, injurious properties, habits, &c., of insects ; and 

 only admit your readers through such a vestibule, you will win numbers to the 

 science, who would have been deterred at the very threshold of mere technical 

 discussions. Indeed, I very much doubt whether fifty copies of a work of the 

 latter description would be sold ; of the former, I am sure, five hundred might. 

 As I look upon our ' Introduction ' scheme as determined on, ought we to lose 

 much more time in setting about it ? " 



Mr. Kirby's next letter to me is dated Feb. 13, 1809 : and after three 

 pages of remarks as to the expediency of retaining old and generally-used 

 names, even though strictly not proper (as mandibulae for maxillae), which 

 I had contended for, but to which he objected, he says towards the end of 

 the letter 



" With respect to our copartnership, I do not think it is much concerned in 

 this argument, for as our terms must be English we should do no more than 

 mention the names of Latin writers. The plan of the work which you have 

 drawn up in your letter, upon the whole pleases me much. I see with you the 

 necessity of making it a popular work, and with a view to it, have been making 

 extracts from Latreille, and have got so forward as to have written a great 

 part of the Introductory letter containing a defence of Entomology from all the 

 objections that have been made to it. I think separate Letters should be al- 

 lotted to the injuries and benefits of insects, another to the wonderful particu- 

 lars of their history, and then the mode of collecting and preserving them. 

 But in my opinion the part that relates to terms should not be confined to Co- 

 leoptera, it should take in all the orders, for which I have materials prepared 

 from Latreille, whose Introduction will be a great help with respect to the 

 Crustacea and Aptera, which you and I perhaps know at present little of. I 

 want another term instead of terminology, which is a word of base origin, having 

 a Latin father and a Greek mother. Orismology, though new-born, is a le- 

 gitimate word, and I think would soon be received into good company, since 

 he deserves it as well as Orychtology, Ornithology, and many other children of 

 his mother Xoyia 



" I have had a letter from my friend Marsham the other day, containing a 

 long philippic against our innovations, and the multiplication of genera, in 

 which he seems to say that he gives up all intention of going further in 

 4 Entomologia Britannica.' In my answer I gave him a further hint of our 

 intention, by saying that besides our Introduction to Entomology, we had an- 

 other plan in view, which we hoped would tend to promote the sale of E. B.' 

 also, but that at present it was an unlicked cub, and therefore I should not say 

 what it was at present. ' Tis best to break the ice gradually ; for though he 

 ought not to be displeased at it, and our works do not interfere, yet I can 

 plainly see there is a little jealousy hanging about him. I have a great regard 

 for him, and you may observe in my Apion how tenderly I have treated him 



