6 



INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



than in many preceding years. To follow only the insects 

 that frequent your own garden, from their first to their last 

 state, and to trace all their proceedings, would supply an in- 

 teresting amusement for the remainder of your life, and at 

 its close you would leave much to be done by your successor ; 

 for where we know thoroughly the history of one insect, 

 there are hundreds concerning which we have ascertained 

 little besides the bare fact of their existence. 



But numerous other sources of pleasure and information 

 will open themselves to you, not inferior to what any other 

 science can furnish, when you enter more deeply into the 

 study. Insects, indeed, appear to have been nature's favourite 

 productions, in which, to manifest her power and skill, she 

 has combined and concentrated almost all that is either beau- 

 tiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious and 

 singular, in every other class and order of her children. To 

 these, her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate 

 touch and highest finish of her pencil. Numbers she has 

 armed with glittering mail, which reflects a lustre like that 

 of burnished metals^; in others she lights up the dazzling 

 radiance of polished gems.^ Some she has decked with what 

 looks like liquid drops, or plates of gold and silver^; or with 

 scales or pile, which mimic the colour and emit the ray of 

 the same precious metals.'* Some exhibit a rude exterior, 

 like stones in their native state ^, while others represent their 

 smooth and shining face after they have been submitted to 

 the tool of the polisher : others, again, like so many pigmy 

 Atlases bearing on their backs a microcosm, by the rugged 

 and various elevations and depressions of their tuberculated 

 crust, present to the eye of the beholder no unapt imitation 

 of the unequal surface of the earth, now horrid with mis- 

 shapen rocks, ridges, and precipices — now swelling into hills 

 and mountains, and now sinking into valleys, glens, and 



1 The genera Eumolpus, Lamprima, Rynehites. 



2 Cryptorhynchus corruscans. Germar (^Insect. Spec. Nov. i. 216.) regards 

 this insect as synonymous with Illiger's Eurhinus cupratus, the description of 

 Avhich I had not seen when the Century of Insects {Linn. Trans, xii.) was 

 written, nor am I able now to speak decisively on the subject. — K. 



3 Erycina Cupido, Argynnis Passiflorcs, Lathonia, &c. 

 ^ Pepsis fuscipennis, argentata, &c. 



o The species of the genus Trox, 



