OBJECTIONS ANSWEEED. 



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celebrated both for wisdom and virtue, may be produced. 

 Aristotle among the Greeks, and Pliny the elder among the 

 Romans, may be denominated the fathers of Natural History, 

 as well as the greatest philosophers of their day ; yet both 

 these made insects a principal object of their attention : and 

 in more recent times, if we look abroad, what names greater 

 than those of Redi, Malpighi, Yallisnieri, Swammerdam, 

 Leeuwenhoek, Keaumur, Linne, De Geer, Bonnet, and the 

 Hubers? and at home, what philosophers have done more 

 honour to their country and to human nature than Kay, Wil- 

 lughby. Lister, and Derham? Yet all these made the study 

 of insects one of their most favourite pursuits ; and, as if to 

 prove that this study is not incompatible with the highest 

 flights of genius, we can add to the list the name of one of the 

 most sublime of our poets. Gray, who was very zealously de- 

 voted to Entomology ; as were the celebrated modern artists, 

 Fuseli and Stothard, and that prodigy of talent, our Dr. 

 Thomas Young, one of whose first essays was upon the habits 

 of spiders, and above all, the immortal Cuvier, who began his 

 career in this science, and retained for it to the last a strong 

 predilection.^ As far therefore as names have weight, the 



1 Several manuscript volumes of Cuvier's descriptions of insects, and beau- 

 tifully accurate figures by his own pen, begun to be vi^ritten and drawn when 

 he was but seventeen years of age, and continued for five or six years following, 

 still exist (fac-similes of some of which have recently been published in Silber- 

 mann's Revue Entomologique) ; and it was, as he himself avowed, the marvels 

 which he discovered in the organisation of insects which elevated his genius to the 

 still higher conceptions which made him the first naturalist of the age. In ac- 

 knowledging the honour which the Entomological Society of France had con- 

 ferred on him, in electing him an honorary member, he thus expressed himself in 

 his letter, dated, alas ! but a fortnight before his death. " I should have been 

 more worthy of the honour formerly, when in my youth this fine science occupied 

 all my leisure moments, but if other branches of natural history have not permitted 

 me to give myself up to it with the same ardour, I do not the less feel always 

 the greatest interest in it." " If," said he one day to his friend, Professor 

 Audouin, " I had not studied insects when I was at college from taste, I should, 

 at a later period, from reason and necessity." For he was convinced that the 

 habit of devoting the entire attention to the examination of minute details, and 

 the experience of the danger of falling into error the moment this habit is 

 deviated from, are most useful preliminaries to the study of the higher animals, 

 and to enable us to derive from it its most valuable fruits. " Are you an en- 

 tomologist ? " he asked, one day in M. Audouin's presence, a young man who had 

 ventured to speak to him of some remarkable peculiarity which he fancied he had 

 discovered in dissecting a human subject. " No," replied the medical student. 

 " Well then," rejoined Cuvier, " I advise you to dissect an insect. I leave the 

 species to your own choice : it may be the largest you can find ; and having 

 done this, review your supposed discovery, and if you still think it exact, I 

 will take your word for it." The young man, a friend of M. Audouin, sub- 



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