PREFACE. xi 



to the world a description of the insects of Sweden, invaluable for its 

 accuracy and completeness, they would be provided in their old age with 

 an object capable not merely of keeping off that tcedium vitcp, so often 

 inseparable from the relinquishment of active life, but of supplying an 

 unfailing fund of innocent amusement, an incentive to exercise, and, con- 

 sequently, no mean degree of health and enjoyment. 



Some, who, with an ingenious author*, regard as superfluous all pains 

 to show the utility of Natural History in reference to the common purposes 

 of life, asking, " if it be not enough to open a source of copious and 

 cheap amusement, which tends to harmonize the mind, and elevate it to 

 worthy conceptions of nature and its Author? — if a greater blessing to 

 a man can be offered than happiness at an easy rate, unalloyed by any 

 debasing mixture ?" may think 'the earnestness displayed on this head, 

 and the length which has been gone in refuting objections, needless. But 

 Entomology is so peculiarly circumstanced, that, without removing these 

 obstacles, there could be no hope of winning votaries to the pursuit. 

 Pliny felt the necessity of following this course in the outset of his book 

 which treats on insects ; and a similar one has been originally called for 

 in introducing the study even to those countries where the science is now 

 most honored. In France, Reaumur, in each of the successive volumes 

 of his immortal work, found it essential to seize every opportunity of 

 showing that the study of insects is not a frivolous amusement, nor devoid 

 of utility, as his countrymen conceived it ; and in Germany, Sulzer had 

 to traverse the same road, telling us, in proof of the necessity of this 

 procedure, that on showing his works on insects with their plates to two 

 very sensible men, one commended him for employing his leisure hours 

 in preparing prints that would amuse children and keep them out of 

 mischief, and the other admitted that they might furnish very pretty 

 patterns for ladies' aprons ! And though in this country things are not 

 quite so bad as they were when Lady Glanville's will was attempted to be 

 set aside on the ground of lunacy, evinced by no other act than her fond- 

 ness for collecting insects ; and Ray had to appear at Exeter on the 

 trial as a witness of her sanityf ; yet nothing less than line upon line can 

 be expected to eradicate the deep-rooted prejudices which prevail on this 

 subject. " Old impressions," as Reaumur has well observed, " are with 

 difficulty effaced. They are weakened, they appear unjust even to 

 those who feel them, at the moment they are attacked by arguments 



* Dr. Aikin. 



f See Harris's Aurelian under Papilio Cinzia. 



