THE STORY OF AN ENTOMOLOGIST 



botany, geology, and chemistry, and also went in for history and 

 — perhaps especially — the French, Italian and German languages. 



I had first met Comstock before entering college. I was out 

 collecting and for the first time had found the very beautiful 

 Huntera butterfly, flying rather abundantly in a field of blossom- 

 ing buckwheat. A strange young man walked up and said to 

 me, "C-c-catching insects?" I replied affirmatively, and he said, 

 "M-m-my name is Comstock, and I t-t-teach entomology in the 

 college. C-c-c-come and see me." This was the beginning of a 

 lifelong friendship. I went to see him, gave him insects for his 

 newly started collection, and read his books, for the first time 

 making the acquaintance of Lyonnet, Reaumur, Westwood, 

 Kirby and Spence, Rennie, John Curtiss, Fitch, Walsh, and a lot 

 of others; for Comstock was already beginning a library in en- 

 tomology which has since become one of the most important 

 in America. 



But we have gone ahead too rapidly. It is true that this is the 

 story of an entomologist, but it is also the story of an average 

 boy. From what has been said before, it is not to be supposed 

 that the boy coUector of insects has anything more than the same 

 collector's spirit that always shows itself with boys, whether they 

 gather postage stamps or old coins or birds' eggs or match-boxes, 

 or glittering things as a jackdaw does. My real interests were in 

 baseball, rowing, sailing on the lake, camping in the woods, and 

 boy games of all kinds. I had to practise on the piano, and what a 

 struggle it was when the other boys were playing baseball almost 

 under the window! 



In the collecting of insects there was a rivalry among the boys. 

 I remember how jealous I was when one of them caught the first 

 Red Admiral. When we saw Sonrel's wonderful woodcut of the 

 Luna Moth in Harris we were all agog to see who should catch 

 the first one. 



[5] 



