Mr. Smeathman, who has been many years in Africa and the West Indies, has furnished me with a few remarks on this subject, together with observations on some particular insects, published in the preceding volumes as well as this. These observations, I am of opinion, will afford information and entertainment to my readers, and, at the same time, throw some light on the nature, qualities, or dispositions of many kinds of insects, of which, hitherto, we know nothing more than the external figure. He informs me, that in hot climates, especially such as are not well settled, the difficulties attending every kind of study, and every species of collecting, are infinitely greater than those who have not visited them can possibly suppose. In those countries, either from the scarcity and high price of the materials, or the dearness of labour, the traders or settlers are obliged to calculate for little more than necessary house-room, with such conveniences only as are absolutely necessary for their different occupations and pursuits; in which they are, from these circumstances, frequently much cramped and embarrassed. If this is the case with those who have all the best means in their power of providing for themselves, how must it be with transient persons and speculative travellers, who are seldom profitable visitors, and whose studies consequently meet with little partiality from such as are assiduously engaged in the sole pursuit of wealth or power? As to the breeding of insects, and observing their changes and dispositions with care and circumspection, it seems almost impossible in the nature of things to be practised, except, comparatively speaking, with a very few. (The ravages of the tropical ants and cock-roaches are then detailed from the {v}information given by Mr. Smeathman, which I have thought it more interesting to introduce with the descriptions of those insects in the second volume.) The _termites_ are another genus of insects, which some time or other injure the traveller, and at least add to the number of his cares. These wonderful creatures were little known till Mr. Smeathman developed their extraordinary history. They were generally supposed to be a species of ant, and in consequence so frequently confounded with the natural history of that great genus of insects, that it has thrown much obscurity into both.