12 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



other insects seem emblematical of a different class of 

 unearthly beino-s : when we behold some tremendous for 

 the numerous horns and spines projecting in horrid 

 array from their head or shoulders ; — others for their 

 threatening jaws of fearful length, and armed with cruel 

 fangs : when we survey the dismal hue and demoniac air 

 that distinguish others, the dens of darkness in which 

 they live, the impurity of their food, their predatory ha- 

 bits and cruelty, the nets which they spread, and the 

 pits which they sink to entrap the unwary, we can scarce- 

 ly help regarding them as aptly symbolizing evil demons, 

 the enemies of man, or of impure spirits for their vices 

 and crimes driven from the regions of light into dark- 

 ness and punishment a . 



The siaht indeed of a well-stored cabinet of insects 

 will bring before every beholder not conversant with 

 them, forms in endless variety, which before he would 

 not have thought it possible could exist in nature, re- 

 sembling nothing that the other departments of the ani- 

 mal kingdom exhibit, and exceeding even the wildest 

 fictions of the most fertile imaginations. Besides proto- 

 types of beauty and symmetry, there in miniature he will 

 be amused to survey (for the most horrible creatures 

 when deprived of the power of injury become sources of 

 interest and objects of curiosity), to use the words of our 



great poet, 



. all prodigious things 



Abominable, unutterable, and worse 



Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, 



Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire. 



a This idea seems to have been present to the mind of Linne" and 

 Fahricius, when they gave to insects such names as Bclzebub, Belial, 

 Titan, Typhon, Ximrud, Gcryon, and the like. 



