116 ON THE OBJECTS OF A COLLECTION OF INSECTS. 



a pin's head, can see, taste, touch and probably hear (which 

 may possibly enjoy a sense of the very nature of which we 

 know nothing) — which having eaten a little sugar turns it 

 into chitine, blood and nerves, to say nothing of four wings, 

 six legs, many hundred muscles and several thousand eyes, 

 and which, more than all, produces a number of little balls, 

 each of which will in due time, after various changes, pro- 

 duce a beetle like the first ? This, forsooth, is interesting no 

 doubt to " collectors," but unworthy of the notice of sensible 

 people because the insect is so small ! 



Perhaps, however, even Entomologists themselves have 

 given too much time to collecting, and paid too little atten- 

 tion to the habits, anatomy and physiology of insects. I 

 find that in the last four volumes of the Transactions of 

 the Entomological Society, 818 pages are devoted solely to 

 descriptions of species and genera, while all the other de- 

 partments of the science occupy only 244, of which 208 treat 

 of the habits of insects, and there is not a single paper on 

 physiology or internal anatomy. This must not be considered 

 as an epitome of all that our Entomologists have done in 

 the last thirteen years. Some of the most interesting Ento- 

 mological papers, those of Newport for instance, have been 

 published in the Philosophical Transactions, or in other 

 works. 



This want of attention to the habits, anatomy and phy- 

 siology of insects, is the more to be regretted, because I fear 

 we must confess that to make collections the end, instead of 

 the means, to collect merely for the sake of collecting, has 

 a direct tendency to narrow the mind. To aspire only to be 

 able to say that one has in one's cabinet a certain number of 

 species, or some rare sorts which nobody else possesses, is 

 surely an ambition quite unworthy of a true Entomologist. 



Yet without collections there could be very little Ento- 

 mology ; the comparative anatomist, the physiologist or the 



