Vlll PREFACE. 



readers of the ' Zoologist ' benefit by your observations. We have 

 an aquatic section of Diptera, Neuroptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera : 

 it is in perfect accordance with the known laws of Nature that there 

 should be an aquatic section of Lepidoptera. 



Again, in the beautiful class of birds, may I not be allowed to 

 invite attention to their lives, to their living actions : the contrast be- 

 tween Nature and what is called Science is here most forcibly set 

 forth. Look at our museums : the very best of them convey little 

 information, give little idea of the living bird, its nest, its eggs, its 

 young, its flight, its food, its history. Surely it is not unreasonable 

 to suggest to our ornithologists another object besides simple destruc- 

 tion of life in their excursions to the woods and fields. What do 

 they obtain by indulging this propensity ? Certainly no improve- 

 ment of heart or head, but perhaps a bulky collection of caricatures 

 of Nature, more libellous, more repulsive than caricatures of the 

 human form. I do not, however, ask the ornithologist to renounce 

 collecting, but I ask him to study as well as to kill. No author on 

 Ornithology but has discovered the impossibility of founding a natu- 

 ral arrangement on the feathers and bones, the beak or the toes : is 

 it unreasonable to beseech our authors to observe the creatures them- 

 selves when " instinct with life ? " 



Species are the alphabet of Natural History ; but what is the value 

 of an alphabet unless you go farther than obtaining knowledge of the 

 letters ? Let me entreat the readers of the ' Zoologist,' now a larger 

 circle than ever, to consider these things, to bear with patience the 

 ridicule which a study of living Nature will certainly induce from 

 those who suppose, or who believe it their interest to suppose, that 

 Nature can only be studied in museums. 



EDWARD NEWMAN. 



Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 

 November 21, 1857. 



