2 JANUARY. 



position with the present, that we may be guided in 

 our conduct now, and its probable effects on the future, 

 by the experience of what has been. 



Welcome, new year ! A new year, a new hope ; 

 new hopes, new fears, new aspirations, new duties : 

 may we use thy moments as a precious trust : if we 

 lose or abuse thee, we are made to suffer for our neg- 

 ligence ; " let us work, therefore, while it is day ; the 

 night cometh, when no man can work ;" we must put 

 forth all our energies, in order to obtain success in 

 whatever pursuit we are engaged, and in nothing is 

 this more true than in regard to entomological science, 

 which is essentially a science of observation. The en- 

 tomological tyro must not content himself by listlessly 

 walking beside a hedgerow, or threading the mazes of 

 a wood, capturing and observing only such insects as 

 force themselves upon his observation, but he must 

 diligently hunt for them, search them out, explore 

 every crevice and crack in search of the perfect insects, 

 and carefully scrutinize every tree, plant and herb that 

 he comes across, in order to discover the larvae or evi- 

 dences of their operations : these will show themselves 

 to the observant and industrious collector in every 

 possible form, mining in blotches and galleries in the 

 leaves, puckering, twisting and folding them in every 

 conceivable manner, agglutinating the young shoots of 

 plants, and mining beneath the bark of trees ; feeding 

 in a variety of ways upon every species of vegetable 

 matter, from the lordly oak of the forest down to the 

 humble lichen upon an old paling. 



In order, therefore, to assist the tyro in his obser- 

 vations, I have endeavoured in the following pages, 



