INTRODUCTION. < 



thoughts, even while tlie infirmities of age weigh 

 down the body. 



It has been objected to the study of insects, as 

 well as to that of Natural History in general, 

 that it tends to withdraw the mind from subjects 

 of higher moment; that it cramps and narrows 

 the range of thought ; and that it destroys, or 

 at least weakens, the finer creations of the fancy. 

 Now, we should allow this objection in its fullest 

 extent, and even be disposed to carry it further 

 than is usually done, if the collecting of specimens 

 only, or, as the French expressively call them, chips 

 (echantiUons)j be called a study. But the mere col- 

 lector is not, and cannot be, justly considered as a 

 naturalist; and, taking the term naturalist in its en- 

 larged sense, we can adduce some distinguished in- 

 stances in opposition to the objection. Rousseau, for 

 example, was passionately fond of the Linnsean botany, 

 even to the driest minutiaj of its technicalities; and 

 yet it does not appear to have cramped his mind, or 

 impoverished his imagination. If Rousseau, how- 

 ever, be objected to as an eccentric being, from 

 whose pursuits no fair inference can be drawn, we 

 give the illustrious example of Charles James Fox, 

 and may add the names of our distinguished poets, 

 Goldsmith, Thomson, Gray, and Darwin, who where 

 all enthusiastic naturalists. We wish particularly to 

 insist upon the example of Gray, because he was 

 very partial to the study of insects. It may be new 

 to many of our readers, who are familiar with the 

 Elegy in a Country Church-yard, to be told that 

 its author was at the pains to turn the characteris- 

 tics of the Linnaean orders of insects into Latin 

 hexameters, the manuscript of which is still preserved 

 in his interleaved copy of the " Systema Naturae." 

 Further, to use the somewhat exaggerated words 

 of Kirby and Spence, whose work on Fntomology 

 is one of the most instructive and pleasing books on 



