118 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



the American Naturalist. If the present rate, therefore, of descrip 

 tion of species be kept up it will require upwards of 2,000 

 years to finish the work of collection and classification of 

 insects. That the entomologists of the world have ample 

 material with which to work and that there is no alarming pros 

 pect in the immediate future of exhaustion of the field is 

 strikingly apparent. 



If time allowed, it would be of interest, perhaps, at this point, 

 to give some statistics relative to the great collections of insects 

 in museums or in private hands, but further estimates and figures 

 would probably weary you, and I shall, therefore, hasten to the 

 conclusion of this paper. 



CONCLUSION. 



It is no longer necessary for the student of entomology to 

 defend his favorite science. The world at large has come to 

 appreciate the importance of such studies and the benefits which 

 may be derived therefrom, both in matters of economics and as a 

 means of appreciating and understanding the general laws which 

 affect all nature.* In the light of present conditions, therefore, it 

 is interesting to recall the estimation in which the entomologists 

 were held by theii contemporaries of the early days. That he 

 was considered "queer" goes without saying. That he was 

 liable to the charge of actual lunacy was demonstrated by not in 

 frequent experience, and in some quarters of the world, for that 

 matter, such views have not entirely disappeared. Illustrating 

 some of these inconveniences of the early days is the incident 

 reported, on the authority of Kirby and Spence, by Moses Har 

 ris, who records an attempt in the i7th century to set aside the 

 will of a certain Lady Glanvilles on the ground of lunacy as 

 evinced by no other act than her fondness for collecting insects, 

 and it was necessary for John Ray, the great zoologist of that 

 period, to appear at Exeter during the trial as a witness to her 

 sanity. 



* Referring to his own career as a collector and that of two or three 

 others who afterwards became famous, Darwin says : " It seems, therefore, 

 that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in 

 life ! " 



