348 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



current observations of the day are recorded. This being continued from 

 year to year, an easy comparison is afforded at a single glance of the 

 entomological peculiarities at any given day or season : whilst an alphabetical 

 index at the end of the volume to the observations contained therein (which 

 feature, however, is wanting in Mr. Curtis's volume) would he found of 

 great service, as showing the periods of the different phases of life of any 

 given species. 



The state of the Science of Entomology, and the means by which it 

 may now most successfully be investigated, are so totally at variance with 

 what they were when about the year 1820 I first commenced the study, 

 that 1 can but feci that the young student may, and almost necessarily must 

 be, deterred from taking up the pursuit otherwise than in a very cursory and 

 unsatisfactory, or in a very limited, manner. At the period to which I have 

 referred, the system of Linnaeus was generally regarded as the He plus ultra 

 of the Science. A few of what we should now regard as quite children's 

 books, such as Pinuock's 'Catechism of Entomology,' ' Anecdotes of Remark- 

 able Insects,' and others of the same class, were, with the exception of 

 Kirby and Spence's ' Introduction,' our only guides. Samouelle's ' Com- 

 pendium ' was commenced and half occupied with the Liunean Arrange- 

 ment, when the latter half of the volume was, by the advice of Dr. Leach, 

 extended to the then modern system of classification and study which had 

 not long before been introduced in France by Latreille. It was conse- 

 quently not difficult in those days to obtain a general idea of the insect- 

 world; and entomologists (with the exception of a few " Aurelians," as the 

 students of Lrpiduptora were then termed) formed general collections of 

 British insects of all orders, the result of which is well shown in the works 

 of Curtis and Stephens. By degrees, however, the vast number of additions 

 to the British fauna, and the unnumbered busts of exotic species with 

 which we have been and still are inundated, have gradually rendered it 

 almost necessary for the lover of the Science to restrict himself to the 

 insects of a single order, or even to those of a single family of insects. 



In this manner, indeed, most important additions have been made to 

 the stores of entomological science. The labours of Sir John Lubbock on 

 the habits of bees, wasps, and ants ; the beautiful works on the Tiueida) 

 by Mr. Stainton ; the monographs on the Carabidw by Dejean ; the 

 hymenopterous works of the late Frederick Smith ; and the dipterous works 

 of the late Professor Loew and of the Baron Osten-Sacken, are all instances 

 of the vast progress made in different directions by continuous specialised 

 labour. Of course to render such labours most efficient it is absolutely 

 necessary that each subject should be thoroughly investigated, and nothing 

 left for future inquiry ; the entire organisation of an insect, in all its stages, 

 must be studied; the opinions of previous writers must be carefully criti- 

 cised, but not slavishly adopted ; and thus works like Lyonnet's wonderful 



