PREFACE. 



THE accomplishment of an undertaking (provided, of course, 

 its object be not reprehensible) is always a subject of satis- 

 faction, and must be so especially in a book begun with 

 hesitation and much diffidence of success, occupying consid- 

 erable time in completion, and depending on public favour 

 for completion at all. Of this description has been the task 

 (albeit a pleasant one) involved in the present volumes, which 

 their author cannot send forth in a threefold form without 

 again adverting, and with due sense of obligation, to the 

 condition last named the friendly favour so essential to 

 their appearance as a whole ; scarcely less so than the genial 

 influence of season and sunshine to the appearance of a per- 

 fect insect developed through its triple stages. 



In making the above comparison, it is far from being in- 

 timated, that the third and final portion of the work now 



VOL. III. 1. 



GG230 



