A NOTICE 
OF 
KIRBY AND SPENCE, 
THE ENTOMOLOGISTS. 
a eo 
Tue Rev. William Kirby, and William Spence, Esq., are certainly 
two of the most eminent entomologists of the present day. Indeed, 
previous to the publication of the ‘ Introduction to Entomology, or 
Elements of the Natural History of Insects,” which, as most of our 
readers are aware, was their joint work, their favourite science was 
regarded, both by the vulgar and a vast majority of the learned, as 
trifling and futile in the highest degree. Nay, the time was, when a 
Lady Glanville’s will was attempted to be set aside on the ground of 
lunacy, merely because she had evinced an extraordinary fondness for 
collecting insects; and Ray had to appear at Exeter, on the trial, as a 
witness of her sanity. Chiefly owing to the authors of the “ Introduc- 
tion,” however, Entomology now divides the empire of Nature, with 
her sister Botany. 
The former ridicule which in this country had been thrown upon 
the science in question, principally arose from the want of a more 
popular and comprehensive Introduction, than was to be found in the 
English language. While elementary books on botany had been 
multiplied in every shape, Curtis’s translation of the Fundamenta En- 
tomologie, .published in 1772; Yeats’ Institutions of Entomology, 
which appeared the year after; and Barbut’s Genera Insectorum, which 
came out in 1781—the two former in too unattractive, and the latter 
in too expensive a form for genera] readers—there were no other 
works professedly devoted to this subject, in our literature. 
Convinced that this was the great obstacle to the spread of ento- 
mology in Britain, the authors of the “Introduction” resolved to do 
what was in their power to remove it, and accordingly laid open to 
their countrymen a mine of knowledge and of pleasure, new, bound- 
less, and inexhaustible. In order to accomplish this purpose, they did 
not content themselves with merely giving a translation of one of the 
many works on the subject extant in Latin, German, or French, add- 
ing only a few obvious improvements. This would have been an 
easy affair, but a most unsatisfactory contribution to science. In the 
technical department of entomology, there existed, previous to Kirby 
and Spence’s labours, much confusion—the same name sometimes 
applied to parts anatomically different, and different names to parts 
VOL, IV. a 
