320 A TOUR BOUND MT GARDEN. 



of moveable horns which the insect bears in the front of its 

 head. 



This would do very well for once ; but if, at every insect 

 we meet with, it were necessary for me to make you undergo 

 a sentence in a foreign language, and then a translation with 

 dictionary fragments, you would soon cease to listen to me; 

 besides, all these words, whatever trouble we may give our- 

 selves in explaining them, convey very little to those who have 

 not seen the objects. 



If, on the contrary, by straining the sense a little, I try to 

 confine the ideas which I wish to make you comprehend within 

 the circle of the somewhat too general ideas wluch you always 

 possess; if, on your account, I call every four-winged insect 

 covered with coloured dust, a butterfly, when perhaps it is 

 a night-moth, a phalsena, a sphyns, <fec. &c. 



If I designate every insect having its wings covered with 

 two hard cases under the vague designation of a beetle, I may 

 make myself sufficiently understood by you, who do not re- 

 quire science of me; but I oflend the learned, and my lan- 

 guage would be as ridiculous for them as that of a foreigner 

 who would write : You have always had for me des boyaux de 

 pire; instead of saying, des entrailles de pere* 



I must, however, tell the learned, that, thanks to their 

 austerity and their dignity, even well informed people, finding 

 the first step of the ladder to a special science too elevated, 

 are frequently discouraged, and do not attempt to mount it. 

 Whilst an ignorant fellow, like me, who has seen some of the 

 learned, and who has carefully preserved aU the crumbs they 

 have been kind enough to drop before him, goes to seek people 

 in a state of ignorance, whose language he knows and does 

 not despise, and brings them to the foot of the ladder; the 

 rest is your concern. * 



If I should publish this journey round my garden, it would 

 go farther in rendering entomology and botany femiliar than 

 the largest and best books published by the learned. 



Science is a steep island, surrounded by a few more rocks 

 than are necessary, to which every savant makes it a pleasure 



• An untranslateable sentence, best explained as being analogous to that of the 

 French author, who translated "Love's last shift," (the title of an old comedy,) by 

 La deini^re chemise de I'amour. — Trans. 



