3538 Notices of New Books : 



" About half a century since, observing accidentally one morning a 

 very beautiful golden bug creeping on the sill of my window, I took 

 it up to examine it, and finding that its wings were of a more yellow 

 hue than was common to my observation of these insects before, I was 

 anxious carefully to examine any other of its peculiarities, and finding 

 that it had twenty-two beautiful clear black spots upon its back, my 

 captured animal was imprisoned in a bottle of gin, for the purpose as 

 1 supposed of killing him. On the following morning, anxious to 

 pursue my observation, I took it again from the gin, and laid it on the 

 window-sill to dry, thinking it dead, but the warmth of the sun very 

 soon revived it ; and hence commenced my farther pursuit of this 

 branch of Natural History."— P. 67. 



He commenced the study of insects under the tutelage of Dr. Gwyn, 

 who, although we cannot charge him with the manufacture of hard 

 names, or the fabrication of eccentric paragraphs in canine Latin, was 

 a good-hearted old man, and a true lover of Nature. Mr. Freeman 

 tells us that 



" Dr. Gwyn pressed upon the attention of his friend that the study 

 of Entomology would afford him much delight; that even had he been 

 less a proficient in Botany, he would not find the new study antago- 

 nistic to the other, but that both might be advantageously pursued to- 

 gether : as to any assistance in his power, it was cheerfully promised, 

 and readily accepted ; and though now in his 75th year, so much was 

 the good old doctor interested in the pursuit of his friend, that he 

 would frequently walk over to Barham, a distanee of five miles, to see 

 what had been the success of recent perambulations. The parsonage- 

 house was then approached by a narrow wicket, with posts higher 

 than the gate, and often, while working in his garden, or sitting in his 

 parlour, Mr. Kirby would look up and see, to his great delight, the 

 shovel hat of his facetious friend adorning one post, and the cumbrous 

 wig and appertaining pig-tail ornamenting the other. And soon the 

 kind old man would walk in with his bald head, as he used to say, cool 

 and ready for the investigation. These visits were always hailed with 

 pleasure, the delights of which were still fresh in the memory of Mr. 

 Kirby, and would call forth expressions of affectionate gratitude, even 

 when nearly half a century had elapsed, after his friend, and Maece- 

 nas, as he loved to call him, had gone to his rest." — P. 69. 



No sooner had Kirby entered on this extended field of research, 

 than he commenced a now life. Botany, the Botany of his neighbour- 

 hood, he had previously studied and exhausted ; but here was a sci- 

 ence that was to be life-long, and to be still unexhausted when, at the 



