54 INTRODUCTION. 



10,000, and I do believe they rather exceed than fall short 

 of this sum." Subsequently, however, in consequence of 

 having discovered a greater number of English moths and 

 butterflies, he was induced to consider that the total number 

 of British insects might be about 2000, and those of the 

 whole earth 20,000, Mr. Stephens, however, in the most 

 perfect catalogue of insects ever yet published, devoted to 

 the British species, has introduced not fewer than 10,000 

 native species, and perhaps 2000 or 3000 remain unnoticed. 

 Limiffius, in the edition of the Fauna of Sweden, of 1761, 

 described 1700 species; and in the twelfth edition of the 

 Systema Naturse, the entire number of these animals 

 (Swedish and exotic), with which he had become acquainted, 

 amounted to about 3000 ; but during the last half century 

 the investigation of insects has so much progressed, that 

 Mr. MacLeay, in his Horge Entomologicae, published in 

 1821, stated that there were certainly more than 100,000 of 

 the annulose animals (nearly synonymous with the Linnaean 

 insects) preserved in the various collections. The latest in- 

 sect census is, however, that of Dr. Burmeister, who states 

 that there are in Germany about 6000 plants (including 

 Crypto f/amia), and more than 12,000 insects; so that, if this 

 proportion be constant, the number of known insects, ac- 

 cording to the 60 — 70,000 known plants, will amount to 

 120 — 140,000 species ; and if the opinion of the latest bota- 

 nists be adopted, that about one-third of the collective 

 species of plants are known, the number of species inha- 

 biting the earth would amount to 360 — 420,000 species. 

 Kirby and Spence, indeed, averaged six species of insects to 

 one phanerogamous plant, and considering there may be 

 100,000 species of phanerogamous plants in the world, they 

 obtain the number of 600,000, or more probably 400,000 

 species of insects. There arc comj)uted to be 28,000 s})ecies 

 of beetles in the roval collection at Berhn; and from the 



