PREFACE. Xvii 



their names, manners, and economy, and the lat- 

 ter initiated into their classification, it will be an 

 excellent method of strengthening their habits of 

 observation, attention, and memory, equal per- 

 haps, in this respect, to any other mental exercise : 

 and then, like Major Gyllenhal, who studied En- 

 tomology under Thunberg about 1770, and after 

 an interval of twenty years devoted to the service 

 of his country, resumed his favourite pursuit with 

 all the ardour of youth, and is at this time giving 

 to the world a description of the insects of Swe- 

 den 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 vitcE so often inseparable from the relin- 

 quishment of active life, but of supplying an un- 

 failing: fund of innocent amusement, an incentive 

 to exercise, and consequently no mean degree of 

 health and enjoyment. 



Some, who, with an ingenious author *, regard 

 as superfluous all pains to show the utility of Na- 

 tural History in reference to the common pur- 

 poses of life, asking <c 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 ? 



* Dr. AikilL 

 VOL. i. b 



