APPENDIX B. 



Fig. E. 



How to pin a Beetle. 



COLLECTING, PINNING, SETTING. 



THERE is possibly no better field for the student of insects tban India ; tbe variety 

 of climate, of vegetation and of physical features means enormous number of 

 species of insects, which flourish each under the conditions suited to them. At all times 



of the year insects are to be found at work, and those 

 who specially study one group, as also those who are 

 interested in insect life as a whole, will always find 

 abundance of material at hand. 



It is nnfortunate that, as elsewhere, the study of 

 one sub-order, the Butterflies, has occupied so large a 

 share of the work of the Naturalist in India. If the 

 attention given to this group had been more equally 

 distributed over the insect world, there would be a far 

 wider knowledge of the insects as a whole. In spite of 

 the volumes on butterflies, moths, plant bugs, bees and 

 wasps, the insect world of India is very little known. 

 The beetles are almost untouched ; the grasshoppers, 

 crickets, mantids, stick insects and other Ortlioptera 

 have been little worked at ; and there is little on record 

 in regard to flies and the smaller species of plant bugs 

 and sucking insects. This refers only to their collection and classification. In the far 

 wider field of biology how little is recorded ; with an almost unparalleled variety in the 

 insect world, there is little known of the life histories, the habits, the beautiful 

 adaptations of even the common insects. The writings of E. H. Aitken illustrate 

 what a splendid field there is for simple observation and study of the manners and 

 habits of the most familiar insects ; and in the present state of our knowledge, the wider 

 problems of distribution, relation to climate, migration, etc., cannot be entered upon. 



There is abundant work in every group, work not less interesting in biology or in 

 the study of less popular groups than that which has been done 

 for butterflies. The condition of the collections at the Indian 

 Museum, the pages of the Asiatic Society and Bombay Natural 

 History Society's Journals illustrate the very scanty nature of 

 the recorded work on Indian insect life, and it is assuredly 

 within the reach of every observer to add to this knowledge and 

 cany on the work. It is needless to enlarge on the value of 

 this work ; those who study Nature do not consider the value of 

 what they do but find an added joy in life in their work ; they 

 then find it impei-ative in the interests of all naturalists to put 

 on record what they have done and help to build up the fuller 

 history of the insect world. 



In the entomologist's world at present, systematic work, that is classification 

 and nomenclature, engrosses a far too large portion of the study devoted to the subject. 

 Qf the thousands who study and write about classification, there are but tens wl^o 



Fig, F. 

 A pinned Bug. 



