INTRODUCTION. 



13 



Lmnteus, " the knowledge of things perishes also;"* 

 and without names, how can any one communicate 

 to another the knowledge he has acquired relative to 

 any particular fact, either of physiology, habit, utility, 

 or locality ? On the other hand, mere catalogue 

 learning is as much to be rejected as the loose 

 generalizations of the despisers of classification and 

 nomenclature. To name a plant, or an insect, or a 

 bird, or a quadruped rightly, is one step towards an 

 accurate knowledge of it; but it is not the knowledge 

 itself It is the means, and not the end, in natural 

 history, as in every other science. 



If the bias of opening curiosity be properly di- 

 rected, there is not any branch of natural liistory so 

 fascinating to youth as the study of insects. It is, 

 indeed, a common practice in many fainilies, to 

 teach children, from the earliest infancy, to treat the 

 greater number of insects as if they were venomous 

 and dangerous, and, of course, meriting to be de- 

 stroyed, or, at least, avoided with horror. Associa- 

 tions are by this means linked with the very ap- 

 pearance of insects, which become gradually more 

 inveterate with advancing years ; provided, as most 

 frequently happens, the same system be persisted in, 

 of avoiding or destroying almost every insect which 

 is unlucky enough to attract observation. How much 

 rational amusement and innocent pleasure is thus 

 thoughtlessly lost ; and how many disagreable feel- 

 ings are thus created, in the most absurd manner ! 

 " In order to shew," says a writer in the Magazine 

 of Natural History, " that the study, or (if the word 

 be disliked) the observation of insects is peculiarly 

 fascinating to children, even in their early infancy, 

 we may refer to what we have seen in the family of a 

 friend, who is partial to this, as well as to all the 



■* Nomina si pereant, perit et cognitio rerum. 

 VOL. iv. 2 



