vi PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. 



four ; if possessed of four, he is taught to observe, whether the 

 two upper wings are of a shelly hardness, and serve as cases to 

 those under them ; if he finds the wings composed in this manner, 

 he is then taught to pronounce, that this insect is one of the beetle 

 kind: of the beetle kind, there are three diflFerent classes, distin- 

 guished from each other by their feelers ; he examines the insect 

 before him, and finds that the feelers are clavated or knobbed at 

 the ends ; of beetles, with feelers thus formed, there are ten kinds ; 

 and among those he is taught to look for the precise name of that 

 which is before him. If, for instance, the knob be divided at the 

 ends, and the belly be streaked with white, it is no other than the 

 Don', or the May-bug; an animal, the noxious qualities of 

 which give it a very distinguished rank in the history of the in- 

 sect creation. In this manner a system of natural history may, 

 in some measure, be compared to a dictionary of words. Both 

 are solely intended to explain the names of things ; but with this 

 difference, that in the dictionary of words we are led fi'om the 

 name of the thing to its definition ; whereas in the system of na- 

 tural history, we are led from the definition to find out the name. 

 Such are the efforts of writers, who have composed their works 

 with great labour and ingenuity, to direct the learner in his pro- 

 gress through nature, and to inform him of the name of every 

 animal, plant, or fossil substance, that he happens to meet with : 

 but it would be only deceiving the reader to conceal the truth, 

 which is, that books alone can never teach him this art in perfec- 

 tion : and the solitary student can never succeed. Without a 

 master, and a previous knowledge of many of the objects of na- 

 ture, his book will only serve to confound and disgust him. Few 

 of the individual plants or animals, that he may happen to meet 

 with, are in that precise state of health, or that exact period of 

 vegetation, from whence their descriptions were taken. Perhaps 

 he meets the plant only with leaves, but the systematic writtr 

 has described it in flower. Perhaps he meets the bird before it 

 has moulted its first feathers, while the systematic description was 

 made in its state of full perfection. He thus ranges without an 

 instructor, confused, and with sickening curiosity, from subject 

 to sul)ject, till at last he gives up the pursuit, in the multiplicity 

 of his disappointments. 



Some practice, therefore, much instruction, and diligent reading, 

 are requisite to make a ready and expert naturalist, who shall be 

 able, even by the help of a system, to find out the name of every 

 object he meets with. But when this tedious, thougli requisite, 

 pait of study 13 attained, nothing but delight and variety attend 



