THE SUBSTITUTE; 
Or, Entomological Exchange Facilitator, and 
Entomologist’s Fire-side Companion. 
]No. 16.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1857. [Peice 2d. 
MICROSCOPIC ENTOMOLOGY. 
The microscope opens such a 
( world of wonders where there was 
apparently nothing existing, that 
lit can scarcely surprise us if the 
jpossessors of microscopes use them 
tto magnify every small object that 
(comes in their way, and that there 
lis comparatively little available 
1 knowledge achieved by their em- 
jployment. There are of course 
(exceptions, but the rule is that he 
iwho has a microscope becomes a 
imicroscopist, and does not use the 
(instrument for the investigation of 
a series of related objects. Thus 
T microscopic science consists in a 
fgreat degree of isolated facts, va- 
lluable no doubt, and to become 
tmore so hereafter, but not of the 
ssame service as observations on 
^structures assimilated to each 
other. 
There seems in fact, so to speak, 
la waste of patience in making mi- 
ccroscopic preparations of objects 
land in looking at them, because 
the knowledge acquired bears no 
ssort of proportion to the time oc- 
icupied in making it. The same 
ttime and the same instrument, if 
the observers only had a definite 
object in view, might work out re- 
sults, in Entomology for instance, 
of which at present we have no 
idea. It is to this we wish to draw 
attention. There is many a young 
mind in which the desire to learn 
Nature’s secrets — the wish to 
know — glows like the sacred fire 
of the altar. Pressed by fate, it 
may be to live in a city, the man 
finds the spark grow dim within 
him ; but if possessed of a micro- 
scope what should hinder the 
smouldering embers from rising to 
a flame. Few may be the man’s 
excursions, and short the time for 
making them, but to one bent 
upon microscopical investigations 
collecting and collections, in the 
ordinary meaning of the terms, are 
unnecessary. A little material 
will go a great way, for in a little 
what an expanse lies unexplored ! 
In the anatomy of insects how 
much remains to be discovered, 
how much to be recorded that has 
never been noted ! 
“ The fashioned limb and lubricated 
joint 
Within the small dimensions of a 
point." 
How much in the wonderful me- 
