THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER, 
No. 2.] SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1850. [Price Id. 
WHY DID MR. WESTWOOD GET THE 
ROYAL MEDAL ? 
We bad not thought it would have fallen 
to our lot to undertake the solution of 
this inquiry, but a blandly facetious 
writer having amused himself with quot- 
ing some of our sayings, emphasizing pas- 
sages not emphasized by us, and then 
commenting on the council of the Royal 
Society awarding the Royal Medal to 
Mr. Westwood, we feel impelled by that 
intense Quixotism, which induces us 
always to rush to the succour of the 
oppressed, to say a few words on the 
subject. 
The assigned cause of Mr. Westwood’s 
receiving the Royal Medal was “ for his 
various Monographs and Papers on En- 
tomology;” but of course man is natu- 
rally so prone to pry into everything that 
is not made specially known to him, that 
every entomologist feels curious to know 
which was the work of so voluminous a 
writer which procured the much-coveted 
distinction. This curiosity is very easily 
gratified : the greater number of works to 
which Mr. Westwood’s name is prefixed 
have not originated with him, but have 
been got up by booksellers, who, looking 
about in search of an author to do the 
Entomological letter-press, have fallen 
in with Mr. Westwood. Such works are 
no criterions of an author’s powers; they 
are of the nature of task-work, in which, 
the remuneration being but scanty, the 
object is naturally to devote no more 
time and trouble to the subject than is 
absolutely necessary. In most cases, if 
Mr. Westwood had not done these works, 
the booksellers would probably still have 
got them done by somebody less compe- 
tent, so that the party who has really 
most right to complain as the aggrieved 
party is not the book-buying public, but 
Mr. Westwood himself, who rather loses 
reputation by such books. 
It is now some eighteen years ago 
since Mr. Westwood brought out the first 
number of his “ Introduction to the 
Modern Classification of Insects,” 
and this work is universally admitted to 
be the best work of his pen. It supplies 
a something which few entomologists 
who have felt the value of it would like 
to be without, and as embracing a bird’s- 
eye view of the varied forms of insects 
throughout the globe, with considerable 
notices of their habits, in two volumes 
octavo, it is a wonderful work, a real 
Entomological “ multum in parvo.” We 
have been a little behind the scenes, 
and, from information that has reached 
us, we have no hesitation in announcing 
that it was mainly for this work that Mr. 
Westwood obtained the Royal Medal ; 
need we add, that in our opinion the ex- 
cellence of that work fully deserved this 
reward. 
It may be naturally asked, “ why, 
if this were the cause, was not the Medal 
awarded long ago?” For the award now 
of the Royal Society has led an eminent 
German Entomologist to remark, that 
by giving the Royal Medal to Mr. West- 
wood the honour had been conferred on 
the Society, implying that it showed not 
so much the merits of Mr. Westwood as 
that the Royal Society had awoke to the 
appreciation of them. There may be 
some truth in this rejoinder; but one 
reason may be assigned for the Royal 
Society’s acuter perceptions. Entomo- 
c 
