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Tuatara: Volume 4, Issue 1, July 1951

Insects, Expeditions, and Dr. Johnston

Insects, Expeditions, and Dr. Johnston

‘Hawkesworth's compilation of the voyages to the South Sea being mentioned:— Johnson: ‘Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, it will be gainful; if as a book that is to increase human knowledge, I believe that there will not be much of that. Hawkesworth can tell only what the voyagers have told him; and they have found very little, only one new animal, I think.’ Boswell: ‘But many insects, Sir.’ Johnson: ‘Why, Sir, as to insects, Ray reckons of British insects twenty thousand species. They might have staid at home and discovered enough in that way.’

The Life of Dr. Johnson, Boswell