xxiv 



conclusion that they are inseparable. So again with the Perlidae. I 

 can find no difference of importance between these and the Achetidae, 

 either in their mouth, their wings or their metamorphosis ; and there- 

 fore I am quite disposed to annex the former to the latter. 



Again let me invite attention to life-histories of our common insects, 

 those concerning which there is no question of specific identity- 

 involved. Let me entreat my contributors to describe the larvae of our 

 Satyridse and Lycamidse from nature ; it is discreditable for us to copy 

 copies of descriptions, and continue to apply them to insects the names 

 of which have been repeatedly changed. Great praise is due to Mr. 

 Stainton for his life-histories of Micro-Lepidoptera, but why stop here ? 

 Why deny to Macroes that careful and minute attention which we are 

 always gratified to find accorded to the Microes ? Let no one listen 

 to the cuckoo-cry that isolated histories are useless : they are the pith 

 and marrow of Entomology, the nerves and sinews of the science. 

 How puerile the idea that a man is never to publish until he is omni- 

 scient, until he has exhausted the secrets of Nature ! Who may expect 

 to attain this fperfection ? The very best informed amongst us are 

 but learners, and those who are the most modest and the least pretend- 

 ing are the most likely to evolve the truth. 



I trust the contributors to the 6 Zoologist' will enter on these and 

 other kindred subjects too numerous even to mention, and in that 

 truth-seeking spirit which for twenty years has characterised its pages. 

 Let every question be discussed with kind and gentlemanly feeling, 

 and let every beginner bear in mind that here at least he will be pro- 

 tected from that overbearing and dictatorial contradiction, that inso- 

 lent depreciation of rising merit which has disgusted so many with a 

 science which they had previously believed guaranteed them from such 

 unmannerly attacks, but whether in the pages of the Zoologist' or the 

 meetings of a society, let every votary of our science be assured that 

 he who flippantly depreciates, dogmatises or contradicts is sure to be 

 in the wrong. Time has already shown the truth of these remarks. 



Edward Newman. 



9, Devonshire Street, Bishopsgate, 

 November 12, 1862. 



