154 ON THE STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



Art. XVIII. — Thoughts on the Study of Entomology. 



Sir, — I do not know if the following thoughts are suited to 

 your Magazine, but if you think that they will do any good, 

 they are at your service. 



I was very much pleased by reading, in your last Number, 

 the Rules of the Entomological Club, and I sincerely wish 

 that such societies were more general. It is not now very 

 often necessary to offer any defence of entomology ; yet most 

 persons are very ignorant of the nature and habits of insects. 

 People go through the world with their eyes shut, and com- 

 plaining of having nothing to do, though surrounded by the 

 most interesting objects. The book of Nature is open on all 

 sides, and on every leaf is something to engage our attention ; 

 and of all the branches of natural history, I believe none is 

 so engaging as entomology, and certainly none is easier of 

 pursuit. 



Who does not remember some happy time in his childhood, 

 when on a bright and sunny day he ran after the butterflies in 

 the fields, and, attracted by their beauty, and too happy to 

 care, was heedless of flowers he trampled under foot ? Who, 

 thinking of that time, does not wish he could recall those joys 

 and be a child again ; and does not regret that his entomology 

 ended there ? 



It is in vain that we complain of the vicious and immoral 

 pursuits of men, if we do not at the same time give them some 

 better object to engage their intellectual powers. The evil is, 

 that their attention has too often been directed to morality and 

 science in dry and abstract forms, and they have turned away 

 in disgust. If our young men, instead of idling their time in 

 the streets or in frivolous amusements, were to walk into the 

 fields, looking for plants and insects, they would have a far 

 higher gratification than they can at present possibly possess. 

 But they do not these things, because they are ignorant of 

 them, or have no taste for them ; and therefore every lover of 

 nature and mankind must be anxious to see natural history 

 take a prominent place in our systems of education. If, for 

 instance, boys, instead of being taught to look upon insects 

 with disgust, were led to view them as highly beautiful in- 

 stances of the skill and contrivance of the Creator, they would 



