June, IQI3 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 71 



about the introduction described him as "by far the best coleop- 

 terist in Sweden." Wm. D. Peck,* Professor of Natural History 

 at Cambridge, Mass., wrote to Kirby in 1808 bewaihng 

 Peck the scarcity of books. There was no mention of Thrips, 

 etc., except inLinne's "System of Nature" and Reaumur's 

 work of 1735. Latreille began a Hfelong correspondence in 1806, 

 writing from the house of his patron, OHvier. It was Prof. Peck 

 who sent the Stylopid known in the checklist as Xenos peckii. 



During 1807 Kirby devoted most of his time to a study of 

 Gravenhorst's work on Staphylinidae. His correspondence with 

 Fabricius was active and on one side slightly acrimonious. Kirby 

 offered many criticisms on Fabricius's views on classification by 

 means of mouth parts, to some of which the latter finally ac- 

 quiesced. Fabricius naively confesses in one letter a cause of 

 some imperfect work, he had spent so much time, he said, in look- 

 ing at his beloved beetles that he had slurred badly the homolo- 

 gies in the other orders. Nevertheless Fabricius proposed to 

 visit Barham in company with Latreille. But, although letters 

 were readily smuggled through, there was too much danger in 

 trying to pass the blockading fleets. France and England did 

 not love each other at that time. 



In 1808 Kirby wrote to Spence suggesting that as Marsham's 

 health could hardly permit him to go on with the ' ' Entomologica 

 Britannica, " they take up some publication more or less periodical. 

 This idea was abandoned in favor of a general treatise. Together 

 they slowly planned the "Introduction to Entomology," settling 

 the details of division of labor almost paragraph by paragraph. 

 Publishers were consulted about the risk of such a costly under- 

 taking. Work was constant. Volume I was put upon the market 

 in 1815. The edition of 750 copies was sold out before the pub- 

 lisher could insert the final items in his cost sheet. Every col- 

 lector wanted it. By 1822 over 1,500 persons in Great Britain 

 and Ireland were studying entomology or collecting, t A 

 second edition was printed before Vol. 2 was published. The 

 third and fourth volumes appeared in 1826. German transla- 

 tions were published 1823-33. A fifth English edition was 



* One beetle was the only insect Peck ever named. 



t For a fine portrait of the local beetle collector of the period consult 

 "Felix Holt, the Radical" by George Eliot. 



