INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 7 



ence, that you will here find an inexhaustible fund of 

 novelty. For more than twenty years my attention has 

 been directed to them, and during most of my summer 

 walks my eyes have been employed in observing their 

 ways ; yet I can say with truth, that so far from having 

 exhausted the subject, within the last six months I have 

 witnessed more interesting facts respecting their history 

 than in many preceding years. To follow only the in- 

 sects that frequent your own garden, from their first to 

 their last state, and to trace all their proceedings, would 

 supply an interesting amusement for the remainder of 

 your life, and at its close you would leave much to be 

 done by your successor ; for where we know thoroughly 

 the history of one insect, there are hundreds concerning 

 which we have ascertained little besides the bare fact of 

 their existence. 



But numerous other sources of pleasure and informa- 

 tion will open themselves to you, not inferior to what any 

 other science can furnish, when you enter more deeply 

 into the study. Insects, indeed, appear to have been na- 

 ture's favourite productions, in which, to manifest her 

 power and skill, she has combined and concentrated al- 

 most all that is either beautiful and graceful, interesting 

 and alluring, or curious and singular, in every other class 

 and order of her children, To these, her valued minia- 

 tures, she has given the most delicate touch and highest 

 finish of her pencil. Numbers she has armed with glit- 

 tering mail, which reflects a lustre like that of burnished 

 metals a ; in others she lights up the dazzling radiance of 

 polished gems b . Some she has decked with what looks 



a The genera Eumolpus, F. Lamprima, Latr. Rynckites, Herbst. 

 '' Cryptorhynchus rutilans, Kirby. 



