INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTING INSECTS. 199 



designed to be the presiding revellers in a scene so full of poetry and 

 beauty. 



The most active and ardent, as v/ell as delicately constituted natures 

 and minds, will always find enough to interest and stimulate them in 

 this study ; leading them gradually onward in the simple path of ob- 

 servation to obscure questions and more intricate problems, which 

 become clear and light under the touch of rightly directed investi- 

 gation. It is quite impossible, however, that every one should be a 

 naturalist ; but there are few who may not with care and the cultiva- 

 tion of habits of accuracy become most excellent observers, improve 

 thereby their general health, and extend the range of their daily 

 pleasures and the congenial and invigorating friendships, which result 

 from the mutual predilections for the same branch of knowledge. 

 The beginner to whom the subject is novel will doubtless meet with 

 many sources of discouragement, but it should only serve to stimulate 

 him to increased application, and inculcate lessons of patience and 

 heedfulness. He will be compelled to acquire the simple technical 

 knowledge in ordinary use, and which can be met with in almost any 

 entomological work ; and this done, he can then confine himself to de- 

 tailing the histories of larva3 development^ or subsequently engage in 

 the more complicated study of classification, which the information 

 he has obtained by observation will the more readily enable him to un- 

 derstand, in the special expositions of the relations of these beings to 

 each other. The object of these remarks is to encourage observation 

 and the practice of recording its results, especially amongst those who 

 are conscious they can do so clearly and well, quite as much as the accu- 

 mulation of collections of perfect insects. The necessity which de- 

 mands the former may be conceived from the fact that the history of 

 scarcely any of our described Lepidoptera is known in all its essential 

 particulars, and therefore attention can scarcely be given to this sub- 

 ject and be unrewarded by some good results. The note booh should 

 be the inseparable companion of the observer, and every fact detailed, 

 every observation recorded ; no matter how trivial it may appear at 

 the time, no one will be inclined to laugh at it, except those whose 

 wit lies on the surface of life " as idle as a painted ship upon a painted 

 ocean." And then, how worse than useless it is to devote time to an 

 object at once praiseworthy and beneficial, yet leave no marks of your 

 progress and labor, by which others may be spared the necessity of 

 traversing the same round of observation which you had long since 

 performed but neglected to render available to whomsoever might be 

 attracted to the same course of study. There never comes to my 

 knowledge an instance of this kind without vividly recalling theun- 

 ^yorthy servant and his single talent, and I am tempted to exclaim, 

 he is justly deprived of the honors and distinctions he might have 

 shared, inasmuch as he has selfishly buried his "talent" in the re- 

 cesses of his own mind. 



" Some, perhaps, of those who read the preceding remarks will ask, 

 What is the use of entomology? These I would ask to consider 

 what they mean by use; they will find, I think, though they may not 

 like to confess it, that their idea of a useful thing is, a thing which 

 can be turned into money. But money itself is only valuable in as 



