PREFACE. xvii 
subject beneath the attention of man. “ Even 
in favour of the mere butterfly hunter, he who has 
no higher aim than that of collecting a picture 
of Lepidoptera, and is attached to insects solely 
by their beauty or singularity, it would not be 
difficult to say much. Can it be necessary to 
declaim on the superiority of a people, amongst 
whom intellectual pleasures, however trifling, 
are preferred to mere animal gratifications ? Is 
it a thing to be lamented, that some of the 
Spitalfield weavers occupy their leisure hours in 
searching for Papilio Adonis, and others of the 
more splendid Lepidoptera, instead of spending 
them in playing at skittles, or in an alehouse ? 
Or is there, in truth, any thing more to be wished 
than that the cutlers of Sheffield were accustomed 
to employ their Saint Mondays, and to recreate 
themselves after a hard day’s work, by breathing 
the pure air of their surrounding hills, while in 
search of this ‘untaxed and undisputed game?’ ”* 
Crabbe, in his poem of The Borough, beau- 
* Kimsy and Sprence’s Introduction to Entomology, vol. 
i. p. 43, 
