“ Insects are usually pointed out to us by those who are about us as ugly, 
filthy, and noxious creatures; and the whole insect-world—butterflies, 
perhaps, and some few others excepted—are devoted by one universal ban to 
proscription and execration, as fit only to be trodden under our feet and 
crushed; so that, often, before we can persuade ourselves to study them we 
have to remove from our minds prejudices deeply rooted and of long standing.” 
—Koursy AND SPENCE. 
“ The importance of insects to us, both as sources of good or evil, I shall 
endeavour to prove at large hereafter; but for the present, taking this for 
granted, it necessarily follows that the study of them must also be important : 
for when we suffer from them, if we do not know the cause, how are we to 
apply a remedy that may diminish or prevent their ravages? Ignorance in 
this respect often occasions us to mistake our enemies for our friends, and 
our friends for our enemies; so that when we think to do good we only do 
harm, destroying the innocent and letting the guilty escape. Many such 
instances have occurred. Middleton, in his ‘Agriculture of Middlesex,’ 
speaking of the plant-louse that is so injurious to the bean, tells us that the 
ladybirds are supposed either to generate or to feed upon them. Had he 
been an entomologist he would have been in no doubt whether they were 
beneficial or injurious; on the contrary, he would have recommended that 
they should be encouraged as friends to man, since no insects are greater 
devourers of plant-lice.”—I». 
