INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



5 



sciences alluded to ; but Entomology certainly is not behind 

 any of her sisters in these respects ; and if you are fond of 

 novelty, and anxious to make new discoveries, she will open 

 to you a more ample field for these than either Botany or the 

 higher branches of Zoology. 



A new vertebrate animal or plant is seldom to be met with 

 even by those who have leisure and opportunity for extensive 

 researches ; but if you collect insects, you will find, however 

 limited the manor upon which you can pursue your game, 

 that your efforts are often rewarded by the capture of some 

 nondescript or rarity at present not possessed by other ento- 

 mologists, for I have seldom seen a cabinet so meagre as not 

 to possess some unique specimen. Nay, though you may 

 have searched every spot in your neighbourhood this year, 

 turned over every stone, shaken every bush or tree, and 

 fished every pool, you will not have exhausted its insect pro- 

 ductions. Do the same another year and another, and new 

 treasures will still continue to enrich your cabinet. If you 

 leave your own vicinity for an entomological excursion, your 

 prospects of success are still further increased ; and even if 

 confined in bad weather to your inn, the windows of your 

 apartment, as I have often experienced, will add to your 

 stock. If a sudden shower obliges you at any time to seek 

 shelter under a tree, your attention will be attracted, and the 

 tedium of your station relieved, where the botanist could not 

 hope to find even a new lichen or moss, by the appearance of 

 several insects, driven there perhaps by the same cause as 

 yourself, that you have not observed before. But should 

 you, as I trust you will, feel a desire to attend to the manners 

 and economy of insects, and become ambitious of making dis- 

 coveries in this part of entomological science, I can assure 

 you, from long experience, that you will here find an inex- 

 haustible fund of novelty. For more than twenty years my 

 attention has been directed to them, and during most of my 

 summer walks my eyes have been employed in observing 

 their ways; yet I can say with truth, that so far from 

 having exhausted the subject, within the last six months I 

 have witnessed more interesting facts respecting their history 



B 3 



