INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



own body.^ If we think with wonder of the populous cities 

 which have employed the united labours of man for many 

 ages to bring them to their full extent, what shall we say to 

 the white ants, which require only a few months to build a 

 metropolis capable of containing an infinitely greater number 

 of inhabitants than even imperial Nineveh, Babylon, Kome, 

 or Pekin, in all their glory ? 



That insects should thus have forestalled us in our inven- 

 tions ought to urge us to pay a closer attention to them and 

 their ways than we have hitherto done, since it is not at all 

 improbable that the result would be many useful hints for 

 the improvement of our arts and manufactures, and perhaps 

 for some beneficial discoveries. The painter might thus pro- 

 bably be furnished with more brilliant pigments, the dyer 

 with more delicate tints, and the artisan with a new and im- 

 proved set of tools. In this last respect insects deserve par- 

 ticular notice. All their operations are performed with ad- 

 mirable precision and dexterity; and though they do not 

 usually vary the mode, yet that mode is always the best that 

 can be conceived for attaining the end in view. The instru- 

 ments also with which they are provided are no less wonderful 

 and various than the operations themselves. They have their 

 saws, and files, and augers, and gimlets, and knives, and lan- 

 cets, and scissors, and forceps, with many other similar im- 

 plements ; several of which act in more than one capacity, 

 and with a complex and alternate motion to which we have 

 not yet attained in the use of our tools. Nor is the fact so 

 extraordinary as it may seem at first, since " He who is wise 

 in heart and wonderful in working" is the inventor and 

 fabricator of the apparatus of insects ; which may be con- 

 sidered as a set of miniature patterns drawn for our use by a 

 Divine hand. I shall hereafter give you a more detailed 

 account of some of the most striking of these instruments ; 

 and if you study insects in this view, you will be well repaid 

 for all the labour and attention you bestow upon them. 



But a more important species of instruction than any 

 hitherto enumerated may be derived from entomological 

 pursuits. If we attend to the history and manners of 



' Tinea serratella, L. 



