16 IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 



strong and so general is this prejudice, that he who 

 devoted his days to observing the habits and economy 

 of insects, would have been regarded as a weak and 

 frivolous mortal — as a busy and unprofitable idler, 

 and unworthy to rank with men who were engaged 

 in more bustUng occupations. A wiser and more 

 philosophical spirit has now arisen, and anything, 

 however minute, which God has been pleased to 

 create, is no longer deemed unworthy of man to 

 study. " The beauties of the wilderness are His," 

 and the leafy monarch of the forest, the lowly and 

 fragile flower, the leviathan with his plated maU, and 

 each tiny wing that flutters in the sunbeam, are but 

 so many varied manifestations of the same Almighty 

 Power. To you, therefore, the study of insects will 

 have many attractions, for few are better calculated 

 than yourself 



"To trace in nature's most minute design 

 The signature and stamp of power divine ; 

 The shapely limb, and lubricated joint, 

 Within the small dimensions of a point ; " 



and to feel the justice of Burke's observation, that 

 we cannot, in the eff"ect on the mind, distinguish the 

 extreme of littleness from the vast itself. As, how- 

 ever, the state of mind which the feeling of surprise 

 creates, or the sense of the sublime occasions, is in 

 its very nature transitory, though delightful, I would 



