Read November 4, 1817.
The infinite host of non-descript insects occurring in the entomological cabinets of this country, is rather disgraceful to us: and what is more so, we permit foreigners to do that for us which we are fully competent to do ourselves. Witness the numbers described by Fabricius, Olivier, and others from British collections.
Pudet hæc opprobria nobis
Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli.
I am not, however, so illiberal as to wish that the entomologists of the continent should be excluded from our cabinets: if we ourselves are too idle, or too busy, to give the public some account of our entomological treasures, it is for the interest of science that they should do it for us.
To remove, in some degree, this opprobrium, I beg leave to offer to the Linnean Society descriptions of a century of the non-descript insects of my own cabinet. Should this attempt meet with approbation, I may be induced, perhaps, to decribe the remainder; and I wish that my example may stimulate other gentlemen to do the same with respect to their own collections.
In my general arrangement I have followed that of my kind
