Turnip Flea-Beetle. 99 



especially the smaller, animals, of which one can but wonder 

 how they could ever have been entertained by reasonable men, 

 and the planting in their stead of facts deduced from strict ob- 

 servation. Still, however, much remains to be learned repecting 

 the proceedings of many of the smaller animals, and especially 

 insects, even of those which are detrimental to mankind. The 

 reader need not be told that, until within the last five or ten 

 years, the entomologist was almost universally deemed little better 

 than a fool ; and yet, at the very same time, hundreds of persons 

 who joined in the cry were suffering from the devastations of 

 insects from ignorance of their habits, which it was the especial 

 province of the entomologist to make known. The public have 

 now, however, learned not only that entomology is capable of 

 affording the highest gratification from the contemplation of the 

 beautiful structure of the creatures themselves, as well as from 

 the observation of their curious habits and singular transform- 

 ations, but, also, that it is only by a precise acquaintance with 

 the economy of the various obnoxious species, founded upon a 

 minute series of observations, that we shall be enabled to obtain 

 a clue to the more effectually checking their devastating career. 

 It is impossible that this can be done in any other manner. We 

 may generalise till doomsday ; but, in practical, as well as 

 theoretical, science, it is only by careful examination of details, 

 either of habits or structure, that any ultimate benefit can be 

 obtained. Books have been written professing to give the 

 natural history of subjects injurious to the agriculturist and 

 horticulturist; but these have been written by persons who, 

 although very good gardeners or farmers, knew scarcely any- 

 thing of the real natural history of insects*, and who have con- 

 sequently failed in giving us any new fixcts upon the subjects 

 upon which they have professed to treat. 



In the series of articles of which this is the first, I hope, 

 after nearly twenty years' investigation of insects and their habits, 

 to be able to lay before the reader facts, old and new, which may 

 tend to the beneficial result which is so much to be desired. Let 

 us not, however, be too sanguine : the facts of the entomologist, 

 as I have elsewhere observed [British Cyclopedia of Natural 

 History^ vol. ii. p. 829.), are but a step towards the fulfilment of 

 our wishes. The cultivator must take his share in the labour ; the 

 discovery of serviceable remedies being to be ascertained only by 

 persons perfectly conversant with the chemical nature of soils, 

 as well as the action oPvarious ingredients which may be employed 

 as remedies, not only upon the insects themselves, but also upon 

 the plants which may be attacked. Such persons, too, are alone 



* I here more especially allude to a thick octavo volume, by Mr. Major, 

 upon the insects destructive to fruit trees, which, as regards the details of 

 insect life, is completely deficient. 



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