10 INTRODUCTION. 



be exhibited more at detail in our pages, cannot fail to con- 

 vince the reader that the class of insects does not possess 

 fewer claims to his attention than any other of the classes of 

 nature. 



The continued action which insects exercise upon the 

 other productions of natui-e (and I may mention, in pass- 

 ing, as a most conclusive evidence of such action, that the 

 island of Grenada is now reduced to a ruinous state owing to 

 the attacks of the diminutive cane-fly upon the canes, hav- 

 ing extended nearly throughout the island), the insm-mount- 

 able power of these enemies, owing to their minuteness, the 

 injm-ies which they inflict upon our possessions, animal and 

 vegetable ; the benefits arising from many of them, their ex- 

 traordinary forms and transformations, rivalhng the most 

 striking creations of fable, the complexity of their organiza- 

 tion, external and internal, their inconceivable industry in 

 the construction of their nests, and the foresight which they 

 manifest in their self-defence, all teach us that Entomology 

 is well worthy of the attention of the observer of natm-e. 



But it will be said, why devote our attention to objects so 

 minute? We reply, if the colossal alone be worthy of 

 notice, search elsewhere for the objects of yom* notice, for 

 here the objects are so small, that the full stop at the termi- 

 nation of this sentence is much larger than many of the 

 species. But, to the eye of philosophy, what matters colossal 



penetrable to the most violent efforts of any external enemy, whilst it 

 yields to the slightest pressure from within, and allows the egress of the 

 moth with the utmost facility, immediately resuming its former appear- 

 ance, so that it is impossible at first to conceive how it is that the moth 

 can have made its escape from an entire cocoon. Meinecken has also 

 suggested that the pressure of these converging threads upon the abdo- 

 men of the moth as it emerges from the cocoon, has the effect of forcing 

 the fluids to enter the nervures of the wings, and give them the proper 

 expansion, having noticed that the moths from chrj'salides taken out of 

 these cocoons were crippled in their wings. 



