46 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 



But if some morbid sentimentalist should still exclaim, 

 " Oh ! but I cannot persuade myself, even for scientific pur- 

 poses, to inflict the slightest degree of pain upon the most 

 insensible of creatures — " Pray, sir or madam, I would ask, 

 should your green-house be infested by Aphides, or your 

 grapery by the semianimate Coccus, would this extreme of 

 tenderness induce you to restrict your gardener from destroy- 

 ing them ? Are you willing to deny yourself these unneces- 

 sary gratifications, and to resign your favourite flowers and 

 fruit at the call of your fine feelings ? Or will you give up 

 the shrimps, which by their relish enable you to play a better 

 part with your bread and butter at breakfast, and thus, in- 

 stead of adding to it, contribute to diminish the quantity of 

 food ? If not, I shall only desire you to recollect that, for 

 a mere personal indulgence, you cause the death of an in- 

 finitely greater number of animals than all the entomologists 

 in the world destroy for the promotion of science." 



To these considerations, which I have no doubt you will 

 think conclusive as to the unreasonableness and inconsistency 

 of the objections made against the study of Entomology on 

 the score of cruelty, I shall only add that I do not intend 

 them as any apology for other than the most speedy and 

 least painful modes of destroying insects. Every degree of 

 unnecessary pain becomes cruelty, which I need not assure 

 you I abhor ; and from my own observations, however ruth- 

 lessly the entomologist may seem to devote the few spe- 

 cimens wanted for scientific purposes to destruction, no one 

 in ordinary circumstances is less prodigal of insect life. For 

 my own part, I question whether the drowning individuals, 

 which I have saved from destruction, would not far out- 

 number all that I ever sacrificed to science. 



My next letter will be devoted to the metamorphoses of 

 insects, a subject on which some previous explanation is 

 necessary to enable you to understand those distinctions 

 between their diflerent states which will be perpetually alluded 

 to in the course of our correspondence ; and having thus 

 cleared the way, I shall afterwards proceed to the consider- 

 ation of the injuries and henefits of which insects are the 

 cause. I am, &c. 



