THE RETROSPECT. 121 



Mr. Greene tells us that the size of the pins used must ever he a matter 

 of taste. This is what I bope I may without offence characterize as a 

 self-evident proposition; but when he had himself pointed out with proper 

 animadversion the ordinary recipe, "Take the largest pin you can find, if 

 with a gigantic head so much the better/' etc. I shewed that in my 

 opinion, taught by experience, he was himself recommending, to some extent, 

 the very thing he was reprehending, and properly reprehending, in others. 



2nd. — He asks me if I possess such insocts as A. atropos, S. ligustri, and 

 S. convolvuli, etc. I answer that I have, and have long had them; that 

 I have four specimens of each of those species in my cabinet, fine ones 

 too, the last-named being all of my own capture, which is perhaps more 

 than many entomologists can say, and two of the Atropos of my own 

 rearing, and that each and every one of them is set with a No. 18 pin, 

 larger ones having already been long since and purposely removed from some 

 of the others. I further assert that in "each and every" case of these, 

 No. 13 is not only sufficiently large, but abundantly so for the proper fixing 

 of those insects, both from above and below, and not only so but the ap- 

 pearance of each specimen is greatly improved and advantaged by the 

 adoption of that size. As to my being alone in the preference for it to 

 those he mentions, I can only say that I hope for the sake of the appearance 

 of the cabinets of others, that the contrary is largely the case. 



3rd. — Mr. Greene next states in reply to my suggestion that the depth 

 of the boards should have been given, that the figure sufficiently represents 

 it. If so, why, may I ask, did he himself think it necessary to give with 

 the very same figure the depth and breadth of the groove, which the self- 

 same figure might, according to him, have explained without the measure- 

 ments? 



4th. — In answer to my remark that his plan was not a new one, he 

 says that he never said that it was. To which I similarly reply that I 

 never said that he did. He did, however, I think, say something like it 

 in saying that he "ventured to suggest" his mode "after many years trial." 

 But, further than this, I have here to observe, that it was not unnatural 

 for me to expect, as I certainly did expect (which thought perhaps it was 

 that made me express myself as I did) something new, from the observation 

 of my worthy co-editor in the No. for December, 1857, page 272, "On this 

 point we shall, next month, give an admirable paper by the Rev. J. Greene, 

 by studying which every one may insure good setting." 



5th. — He points out that he did not exactly say, "move up the wing 

 with the piece of wetted paper," but "hold it down when moved up." So 

 be it. It seems to me at best but a clumsy way of doing business; and 

 as to its being better than pinning the wings (though pro tempore only) 

 with a minute pin, I must remark that the latter is not a plan that I 



