PREFACE. 



XV 



superfluous all pains to show the utility of Natural 

 History in reference to the common purposes of life, 

 asking, if it be not enough to open a source of 

 copious and cheap amusement, which tends to har- 

 monise the mind, and elevate it to worthy concep- 

 tions of nature and its Author ? — if a greater blessing 

 to a man can be offered than happiness at an easy 

 rate, unalloyed by any debasing mixture?" may 

 think the earnestness displayed on this head, and 

 the length which has been gone in refuting objec- 

 tions, needless. But Entomology is so peculiarly 

 circumstanced, that, without removing these ob- 

 stacles, there could be no hope of winning votaries 

 to the pursuit, Pliny felt the necessity of following 

 this course in the outset of his book which treats on 

 insects ; and a similar one has been originally called 

 for in introducing the study even to those countries 

 where the science is now most honoured. In France, 

 Reaumur, in each of the successive volumes of his 

 immortal work, found it essential to seize every op- 

 portunity of showing that the study of insects is not 

 a frivolous amusement, nor devoid of utility, as his 

 countrymen conceived it ; and in Germany, Sulzer 

 had to traverse the same road, telling us, in proof of 

 the necessity of this procedure, that on showing his 

 works on insects with their plates to two very sen- 

 sible men, one commended him for employing his 

 leisure hours in preparing prints that would amuse 

 children and keep them out of mischief, and the 

 other admitted that they might furnish very pretty 

 patterns for ladies' aprons! And though in this 

 country things are not now quite so bad as they 

 were when Lady Glanville's will was attempted to 

 be set aside on the ground of lunacy, evinced by no 



