38 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



Nor would size or colour be any better guide: there are 

 hundreds of beetles of the same size and the same colour. 

 Even the plant on which it fed would be no sufficient clue ; 

 for many insects, resembling each other to an unpractised eye, 

 feed on the same plant, and the same insect in different 

 countries feeds upon different plants. His only resource, then, 

 would be a coloured figure and full description of it. But 

 every entomologist knows that there exist insects perfectly 

 distinct, yet so nearly resembling each other, that no engraving 

 nor any language other than that strictly scientific can pos- 

 sibly discriminate them. After all, therefore, the chances are 

 that our discoverer's remedy, invaluable as it might be, must 

 be confined to his own immediate neighbourhood, or to those 

 who came to receive personal information from him. But 

 with what ease is it made known when a system of the science 

 exists ! If the insect be already described, he has but to men- 

 tion its generic and trivial names, and by aid of two words 

 alone, every entomologist, though in the most distant region 

 — whether a Swede, a German, or a Frenchman— -whether a 

 native of Europe, of Asia, of America, or of Africa, knows 

 instantly the very species that is meant, and can that moment 

 ascertain whether it be within his reach. If the species be 

 new and undescribed, it is only necessary to indicate the 

 genus to which it belongs, the species to which it is most 

 nearly allied, and to describe it in scientific terms, which may 

 be done in few words, and it can at once be recognised by 

 every one acquainted with the science. 



You will think it hardly credible that there should be so 

 much difficulty in describing an insect intelligibly without the 

 aid of system ; but an argumentum ad hominem, sujiported by 

 some other facts, will, I conjecture, render this matter more 

 comprehensible. You have doubtless, like every one else, in 

 the showery days of summer, felt no little rage at the flies, 

 which at such times take the liberty of biting our legs, and 

 contrive to make a comfortable meal through the interstices 

 of their silken or cotton coverings. Did it, I pray, ever enter 

 into your conception that these bloodthirsty tormentors are 

 a different species from those flies which you are wont to see 

 extending the lips of their little proboscis to a piece of sugar 

 or a drop of wine ? I dare say not. But the next time you 



