1903 Scientist versus Collector $7 



group of Naturalists, those who gather in, tabulate, and set 

 forth in serried array the objects and the observations of the 

 collectors, showing what situation each should take in the 

 scale of Nature, and thence passing their heterogeneous 

 masses in natural sequences to the philosopher who could 

 scarcely hope to investigate each for himself. It is to this 

 class that the majority of Field Societies owe their incep- 

 tion : the collector is a solitary individual to whom the 

 beauties of the country are everything, the philosopher is 

 also alone in the erection of thought. On the other hand, 

 the prime duty of systematists and nomenclators is to be 

 perpetually au fait with the literature of their period, and 

 hence with those who write it, to mingle with that which is 

 passing in his particular branch of Natural Science, and see 

 that nothing escapes his recording eye. Of recent years a 

 great factor in the institution of Field Societies has been 

 the student of geographical distribution, which in the earlier 

 stages of knowledge could be but partially understood 

 through lack of evidence. Volumes have now been written 

 upon the causes of faunistic local distribution ; we know a 

 great deal, not only respecting atmospheric, geological, and 

 chemical conditions governing or influencing a species' 

 range, but also in what directions and to how great an ex- 

 tent each is likely to affect it in its development and habits. 

 Applying the study of distribution to the entomology of 

 our own islands, it is extremely interesting to note in the 

 first place how comparatively few insects are introduced by 

 artificial means out of the thousands of foreign kinds ; this is 

 accounted for, of course, by their isolation by water : a few 

 are imported with foreign timber, a few in grain, others in 

 the ships themselves or in the sailors' clothing, but hardly 

 any except the strongest fliers appear able to cross the 

 waste of waters by means of their own volition. Even now, 

 I believe, it is a vexed question whether the lovely clouded 

 yellow butterfly ever actually breeds with us, and whether 

 the huge convolvulus hawk moth is not almost always with 

 us, though unseen, and their greater or less prevalency due, 

 not to inter-geographical but to local agencies. Secondly, 

 there is the great group of insects which have at some more 

 or less remote period been undoubtedly introduced from 



