BY EDWARD NEWMAN. LONDON: FREDERICK WESTLEY & A. H. DAVIS, STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 1832. LONDON: PRINTED BY R. CLAY, BREAD STREET HILL, CHEAPSIDE. PRINTED BY R. CLAY, BREAD STREET HILL, CHEAPSIDE. TO HIS HIGHLY-ESTEEMED FRIEND, BRACY CLARK, ESQ. FELLOW OF THE LINNÆAN SOCIETY OF LONDON, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, &c. &c. THIS LITTLE ESSAY IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR....

The question—What was the Sphinx Vespiformis of Linnæus?—is one that has occurred to almost every entomologist. It seemed rather strange that Linnæus should have described, in all his works, an insect which had no existence; yet that really appeared to be the case. Laspeyres, the clever monographer of the Europæan Sesiæ , previously to the appearance of that work, wrote to my highly valued and ingenious friend, Mr. Clark, requesting that he would investigate and describe for him the real Linnæan

SPHINX VESPIFORMIS. &c....

Any attempt to overthrow existing systems, originally devised and unanimously approved by men of superior talents and great acquirements, should not only be made but received with the greatest possible caution; but when, as in the arrangement of the objects of natural history, there exists no universally received plan, but each systematist has, for a few months, or at most, years, his little circle of immediate followers and admirers, one thing must be obvious,—that the true system is yet undisc

Many theories, which read plausibly enough, we find, on attempting to apply them, totally at variance with facts: I will, therefore, not content myself with making unsupported assertions, but endeavour to summon to my aid fragments of the great whole, and array them before the reader, in what I consider order, asking of him, as an especial favour, that he will examine and compare the genera and species which I shall mention as related to each other in corroboration of my scheme; for much as I co

FINIS. R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD-STREET-HILL. DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE DIAGRAMS. 1. The Classes of Insecta to face page 21. 2. The Sub-classes of Lepidoptera to face page 31. 3. The Natural Order of Cossi to face page 52....