2 LETTERS ON ENTOMOLOGY. 
which are sometimes more useful than many 
people, who pass their lives in idleness or trifling 
occupations. 
You may perhaps, like some others, consider 
the study of this part of natural history of small 
importance, and as a frivolous amusement ; but 
though I should wish you to find it amusing, 
yet it has a higher object, — to excite admiration 
of the power of the great Author of so many 
wonders. Can we consider any thing trifling, or 
unworthy our regard, which it has pleased the 
Supreme Being to endow with such infinite 
variety of beauty and usefulness ? If men had 
not long ago watched the habits, and taken ad- 
vantage of the labour of insects, we should have 
wanted many of the luxuries and comforts we 
now enjoy. Who would have believed that a 
caterpillar, so small as the silkworm, could fur- 
nish one of the greatest articles of commerce, 
and give occasion to so many different arts and 
manufactures, enabling thousands of people to 
live by honest industry ? 
Honey and wax are without doubt most useful 
to us, and we should never have had them if 
men had not observed bees in their wild state, 
and made their peculiar habits subservient to 
their own use, by bringing them into hi ves. 
