The entomologist's text-book; an introduction to the natural history, structure, physiology and classification of insects, including the Crustacea and Arachnida / By J.O. Westwood.

  • John Obadiah Westwood
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The entomologist's text-book; an introduction to the natural history, structure, physiology and classification of insects, including the Crustacea and Arachnida / By J.O. Westwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    history which have issued from the press, in which the leech and snail, together with many of the still lower animals, are introduced, without even a sectional note of distinction, amongst insects. If we look around, on every side, in every place, and in every season, we behold the immense profusion with which nature has scattered the objects of our present meditation. The earth, the water, and the air, teem with insect inhabit- ants; every vegetable supports numerous colonies; the di- minutive fungus and the gigantic oak are alike subject to their attacks ; and as a proof of the vast extent of the series it may be added, that Saint Pierre tells us, that several hun- dred different species of insects visited a small rose-tree placed in the window of his study, whilst a single forest tree is the abode of numerous tribes and families. In like man- ner they cease not in their attacks upon animal matter, both in a dead and living state; and man himself, the lord of all, is not exempt from annoyances from them. How necessary, then, from the msurmountable difficulty resulting from the almost infinite number of these creatures, is it to bespeak the indulgence of the reader in attempting to lay before him, in as concise a manner as possible, a sketch of the insect world. It is not difficult to imagine the painful nature of the researches necessary for obtainmg a knowledge of the internal anatomy and other peculiarities of creatures, of which by far the greater portion do not exceed an inch in length. And here it is that we, in the most. especial man- ner, discover the mvaluable worth of the microscope, that surprising instrument, by which the minute wonders of the creation are brought as vividly before the eye of the observer, as are the wonders of the celestial sphere by that other philosophical wonder, the telescope. These imstru- ments are now, it is true, no novelties; but we know no more striking instances in which the powers of the
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