THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. Ill 



No doubt, big prices have been paid, especially long ago 

 when travel was not so easy as it is now. A very interesting tale 

 is that of the first collector who landed in the Solomon Islands 

 and lived six weeks in the tree tops to avoid the head hunters. 

 We hope his grist fetched a big price and that for his glorious 

 new green and gold OrnitJwptera a sum in four figures was given. 

 We know that the first Dnirya antimachus (or perhaps it was not 

 even the type) was bought by a Scotchman for $1,500, but we do 

 not know how much of this went to the explorer who braved the 

 malarial jungle. For a Brooklyn collection $2,000 was once paid, 

 there being little of value except the singleton Actias Jehovah, 

 eccentrically named by Strecker. An aberrant Papilio was once 

 sought from Mr. Neumogen by a Russian Prince for $1,000, but 

 its like can now be bought from a dealer for $25. Girdling the 

 world is making it smaller. Mr. Say received $300 for his Ambly- 

 chila cylindriformis It was thirty years before a second specimen 

 was ifnearthed. That fetched $50. To-day fifty cents is a fair 

 price. Not many years ago a collector in New Jersey had in his 

 boxes two aberrants of common Papilio. A dealer gave him $25 

 for both and resold them for about $300 each. The first three 

 specimens of Sphinx frankii, caught not so many years ago, 

 averaged nearly $300 apiece. Such instances can be multiplied 

 many times. 



As for making a living by collecting, a few exceptions prove 

 the rule of its futility. An enterprising young woman in the far 

 west, taught by her father, a veteran collector, caught both place 

 and psychological moment. She sold her season's catch from an 

 untraveled mountain pass for a price which sent her through 

 college. But how many others could get a tenth as much? Could 

 any half-trained collector get a cent a piece for a season's catch, 

 unless from some very remote place? A collector well trained in 

 beetle study, whose home territory is in the mountains seldom 

 traveled, writes to me that with constant labour he can hardly 

 average $5 a week. 



A favorite way of collecting is to get "grubstaked." Some 

 naturalist wants to visit some rare locality and collects funds 

 from his friends, each contributor to take pay in "results," one 

 taking beetles, another Orthoptera, etc. Of a score of such trips 



