4588 Insects. 



ful, and the humane, having none of the pangs of apprehended 

 cruelty, will lose their chief inducement to treat them well; but 

 I myself have no fear of any such result : that the thoughtless may be 

 thoughtless still is very probable, but the humane, being spared the 

 pangs of inflicting pain will be not only able, but hundreds will be 

 induced who before would not hear of such a thing, to study these 

 creatures closely, without fear of being disgusted, and it is from their 

 being made a general object of study and investigation that I antici- 

 pate for them a thoughtful and lenient treatment, and I think 1 may 

 even assert that the thoughtless in these matters are now but few and 

 far between, and likely to become still fewer : on the other hand, if 

 what I have said shows anything it shows that an enormous number 

 of animated beings are still gifted with an acute sense of pain ; so that 

 there is no fear of deadening in the human mind, for want of exercise, 

 the beautiful sentiments of mercy and pity, which will now be the 

 more forcible as they will be less misdirected. 



Octavius Pickard-Cambridge. 

 Hatch Beauchamp, Taunton, 

 November 3, 1853. 



PS. Seeing that the subject of cruelty to insects is mentioned in a 

 paper on ' Killing Insects,' by G. B. Buckton, Esq. (Zool. 4503), who 

 notices the disinclination of writers to broach the subject, I trust the 

 present paper (written, as may be seen by the above date, last autumn) 

 will be received as the first stray shot fired from the hitherto-silent 

 fortress, to be followed up by the heavy batteries of other more skilful 

 marksmen. One or two other facts mentioned by myself are also 

 noticed by Mr. Buckton, but the different dates of our papers preclude 

 any idea of intentional plagiarism ; I think it also but fair to myself 

 to state that I have never read it, nor was I before aware of Messrs. 

 Kirby and Spence's treatise upon this subject, as mentioned by 

 Mr. Buckton. 



O. P.-C. 



Blox worth House, November 30, 1854. 



[I could not have admitted Mr. Pickard-Cambridge's paper after peremptorily 

 closing the brilliant but too extended discussion on the same subject, contained in the 

 early volumes of the ■ Zoologist,' had that gentleman reopened the question then at 

 issue, but his observations appear too general to invite reply. — E. Newman.'] 



