112 ^ THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



taken or planned during the last five years I do not recall one that 

 was successful. During three years of editorship I have received 

 probably a thousand letters of which a sample is: "I have sixteen 

 ■cecropia cocoons, two Luna, three Pro met hea, and one Polyphemus. 

 What can I get for them?" What can one rcph when he gives 

 .away each year several bushels of them for school study? 



Even the practice of "exchanging" seems to 1)c in decay. 

 One reason for this is, no doubt, due to the lack of idea of fairness 

 in giving value for value. Another is that the Lcpidoptera have 

 been so well distributed that there is little left to exchange. A 

 while ago a selection of four hundred names was taken from the 

 Naturalists' Directory, all marked as desiring to exchange in some, 

 province. -Ml these were written to. A dozen replies were re- 

 ceived, mostly to say that no more interest was taken. Not one 

 Avas inclined to start exchanges on any basis whatever. In a 

 Pacific Coast city, where Natural History has lately received a 

 great impetus, there are sixty lads frequenting a newly established 

 Museum, who ha\e written broadcast, wanting to gi\e their local 

 butterflies in exchange for those of any other part of North America, 

 I doubt if between them all they have recei\ed ten letters of en- 

 couragement. 



Is there no pleasant side to the story? Do not some make 

 money? Yes, many. A farmer in California allows the Dutch- 

 man's Pipe to grow in some of his fence corners. He takes enough 

 chrysalids of Papilio philenor to pay the annual taxes on the whole 

 farm. An assistant janitor of a big building in BrookKn loves 

 his Sunday afternoon walk in the country. One day he gathered 

 50,000 hibernating squashbugs {Anasa trislis) and sold them. 

 He cleared $90 in twenty walks and had lots of fun besides. One 

 day a party of us were on Rockaway Beach when Anosia plexippus 

 was swarming on the way south. They were numb with cold 

 and easy to pick as blackberries. A day's work would have in- 

 cluded less than, say, 20,000 of them, and the>' found a ready 

 market at a cent and a half. Not a bad day for some of our 

 collectors, whose pay envelope contains perhaps S12 per week. 

 A Newark collector has walked under the electric lights ever>' 

 warm evening for many years. He has thus aided his health, 



