PREFACE. 



THE following Essays have been written, not with a view of 

 teaching Entomology as a science, but of affording such a 

 measure of acquaintance with the habits of the Insect world, 

 as may serve to promote the ulterior and more useful de- 

 sign of cultivating the rudimental seeds of systematic in- 

 vestigation. For this, with many, sufficient leisure, fitting 

 residence, and other appliances may be wanting, but few 

 can entirely lack opportunity for becoming more observant 

 of Nature's wonders, m9re impressible to her influences 

 and her teachings, or more alive to the superior intelli- 

 gence visible in her works. On nothing, perhaps, are the 

 signs of that intelligence more obviously impressed than 

 on the operations of Insects, which, as creatures pre-emi- 

 nently under the rule of instinct, attest as pre-eminently that 



"The mind which guides them is divine." 



