INTRODUCTION. 3 



freshest and the most delightful parts of knowledge ; 

 the more do we learn to estimate rightly the extraor- 

 dinary provisions and most abundant resources of a 

 creative Providence ; and the better do we appreciate 

 our own relations with all the infinite varieties ot 

 Nature, and our dependence, in common with the 

 ephemeron that flutters its little hour in the summer 

 sun, upon that Being in whose scheme of existence 

 the humblest as well as the highest creature has its 

 destined purposes. " If you speak of a stone," says 

 St. Basil, one of the Fathers of the Church, " if you 

 speak of a fly, a gnat, or a bee, your conversation 

 will be a sort of demonstration of His power whose 

 hand formed them ; for the wisdom of the workman 

 is commonly perceived in that which is of little size. 

 He who has stretched out the heavens, and dug up 

 the bottom of the sea, is also He who has pierced a 

 passage through the sting of the bee for the ejection 

 of its poison." 



If it be granted that making discoveries is one of 

 the most satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may 

 without hesitation affirm, that the study of insects is 

 one of the most delightful branches of natural his- 

 tory, for it affords peculiar facilities for its pur- 

 suit. These facilities are found in the almost inex- 

 haustible variety which insects present to the entomo- 

 logical observer. As a proof of the extraordinary 

 number of insects within a limited field of observation, 

 Mr. Stephens informs us, that in the short space ot 

 forty days, between the middle of June and the be- 

 ginning of August, he found, in the vicinity of Ripley, 

 specimens of above two thousand four hundred species 

 of insects, exclusive of caterpillars and grubs, — a 

 number amounting to nearly a fourth of the insects 

 ascertained to be indigenous. He further tells us, 

 that among these specimens, although the ground 

 had, in former seasons, been frequently explored, 



b 2 



