ENTOMOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



APRIL, 1835. 



Art. I. — On the Series of Nature, and on the Relations of 

 Animals. Remarks occasioned by a Review of the Pre- 

 liminary Discourse on Natural History. By William 

 Swainson, Esq. 



The Reviewers having now, in the ordinary phrase, " done 

 their duty," with my Preliminary Discourse, permit me, 

 through the medium of your valuable pages, to make a few 

 observations upon what has been said of my labours. I may 

 safely appeal, indeed, to your present indulgence ; inasmuch as 

 the remarks which follow, in their spirit, are as applicable to 

 the study of Entomology as to any other branch of Zoology ; 

 and may, by eliciting others from such of your readers as are 

 versed in the details of our science, tend to advance its best 

 interests. I should wish, moreover, to discuss the questions at 

 issue more as matters of science, than in the ordinary style of 

 answering reviewers. When opinions are fairly and candidly 

 stated, in temperate and courteous language, we cannot doubt 

 that truth is the sole object for which the writer contends ; and 

 he is, to say the least, entitled to a calm and conciliatory 

 answer. But when, on the other hand, a reviewer sets out 

 with a dishonest and malicious intention of misrepresenting an 

 author, perverting his meaning, falsifying his statements, and 

 fastening opinions upon him which he has never uttered ; 

 when, moreover, from lack of argument, he is obliged to have 

 recourse to jesting, he evidently shows he is neither a lover of 



NO. I. VOL. III. B 



