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il A NOTICE OF 
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essentially the same, while others of primary importance were without 
any name at all. And with reference to the anatomy and physiology 
of insects, they could no where meet with a full and accurate gene- 
ralization of the various facts connected with these subjects, scattered 
here and there in the pages of the authors who have studied them. 
They therefore began, in some measure, de novo, to institute a 
rigorous revision of the terms employed, making such additions and 
improvements as seemed to be called for; and to attempt a more com- 
plete account of the existing discoveries respecting the anatomical 
and physiological departments of the science, than had yet been given 
to the world. But they did not halt here ; for in the present age, when 
the love for popular treatises is so prevalent, they felt it to be necessary 
to conduct the student through the attractive portal of the economy 
and natural history of the objects of the science. It is to this branch 
that they have devoted the most considerable portion of their work, 
bringing into one view, under distinct heads, the most interesting dis- 
coveries of Reaumur, De Geer, Bonnet, Lyonet, the Hubers, &c., as 
well as their own individual observations, relative to the noxious and 
beneficial properties of insects ; their affection for their young ; their 
food, and modes of obtaining it; their habitations, societies, &c., &c. 
In this‘undertaking, which must have been one of no moderate 
labour—a labour, too, from which any fame that could result was 
necessarily to be very limited, and to the completion of which great 
pecuniary outlay was inevitable—the authors of the ‘ Introduction” 
adopted the epistolary form of writing, because it admitted of digres- 
sions and allusions often called for in a popular work, and because it 
was better suited than any other for conveying those practical direg- 
tions, which in some branches of the pursuit the student requires. 
The most alluring side of the science is first discussed, viz. that 
which belongs to the manners and economy of insects, and where 
there was the least room for originality. ‘They enter more fully, how- 
ever, into the other branch, viz. that which belongs to the anatomi- 
cal, physiological, and technical parts of the work. As far as regards 
the general physiology and internal anatomy, they have done little 
more than bring together and combine the observations of other 
naturalists who have attended to these branches; but the external 
anatomy they have examined for themselves, through the whole class 
of insects. Here they are assuredly entitled to the praise of having 
thrown much new light upon the subject, particularly by pointing out 
and giving names to many parts never before noticed. 
In the Terminology, or what they call the Orismology of the science, 
the authors have introduced a great degree of precision and concin- 
nity—dividing it into general and partial orismology. Under the 
former they define such terms as relate to Substance, Resistance, 
Density, Proportion, Figure, Form, Superficies (under which are in- 
troduced Sculpture, Clothing, Colour, &c.), Margin, Termination, In- 
cision, Ramification, Division, Direction, Situation, Connection, Arms, 
&c.; and, under the latter, those that relate to the body and its parts 
or members, considered in their great subdivisions of Head, Trunk, 
and Abdomen, 
