Our Knowledge Of Insects

In England we have about 12,000 species of insects, and it is perhaps not to be expected that the ultimate total, when all the sinallest species have been collected and studied as assiduously as the larger ones, wijl exceed this estímate by more than a few lmndred, or at most 1,000 or 2,000. But with foreign countries it is very different, and I must confess that I was surprised when I lately received a fine new species of phasmida frorji Madagascar, to find that barely half a dozen species had yet been recorded from that jsland. If this is the state of our knowledge of such insects as phasmida, how imperfect must it be of the smaller species of coleóptera, hymenoptera, diptera, etc, many of which are of almost scopic dimensions! Many insects are so local and so closely connected with plants which disappear before civilization that the saine Lito of extermination which has fallen on so many of the larger animáis during the last century cannot tmt fall heavily npon these also. It is not too much to say that it is highly probable that alarge proportion of the insects at present existing in the world will become extinct before their existence is even known to tifie