178 ON MAKING USEFUL COLLECTIONS OF INSECTS. 



These slides must, of course, be kept in the usual microscopic 

 cabinet. That form in which each slide lies flat is decidedly pre- 

 ferable. Each slide must bear a distinctly marked number, so 

 that it may be replaced in the cabinet in a moment. For finding 

 them a register must be kept having an index to the genera at the 

 end. Having found the page in the register where the genus 

 occurs, it is very easy to find the species and the particular object, 

 which will show exactly what is wanted. 



I fear many entomologists will object to the system I have 

 tried to sketch out on account of the trouble and time it would 

 take to make a collection with any completeness in this way. No 

 doubt it would take a good deal of time and a great deal of appli- 

 cation, but I maintain that the genuine student of Nature knows 

 no such thing as trouble, and if the time at his disposal is not 

 sufficient to deal with the whole of the Coleoptera, for instance, 

 let him take one group, such as the Geodephaga or the Hydrade- 

 phaga, and work it out in a genuine and conscientious way. Not 

 only would his collection be more useful and interesting, but the 

 information he would be able to impart would be of considerable 

 scientific value. It is decidedly better to take a group and make 

 a collection of it in as complete a way as possible, and to study the 

 structure of the insects so as really to know something about them, 

 than it is to collect thousands of species, and merely place them 

 in drawers or boxes, and know nothing more about them than 

 simply to recognise the insects at sight. 



In conclusion, I would wish most emphatically to express my 

 conviction, whether the foregoing ideas of making collections be 

 accepted or not, that certainly the majority, if not all, of our col- 

 lectors of insects would get on better and make more genuine 

 advancement if they would use the compound microscope more 

 generally than they do. 



