8 IS ENTOMOLOGY PROGRESSING? 



boxes at the end of the season ; for till one gets to know of 

 those who are in want of one's duplicates, but little attention 

 is paid to the collection of them. 



But granted that each collector is more active, and granted 

 even that there are a few more collectors than formerly, still 

 we may recur to the question — Is Entomology progress- 

 ing ? 



Entomology is the study of insects ; the collector catches 

 insects, but it does not follow that he studies them ; to assume 

 that an increase in the number of collectors necessitated the 

 progress of Entomology, would be as rational as to assert 

 that Mineralogy was now making vast advances, because so 

 many had gone to the gold-diggings of California and 

 Australia. 



In 1850 the following passage appeared in the pages of 

 the Zoologist. 



" I imagine all persons commence a collection of insects 

 with the notion that they are thereby making something 

 pretty to look at. Yet, the desire to have them named and 

 arranged, treads very closely on the heels of the desire to 

 form a collection. And this naming and arranging is no 

 child's play, no baby-work : if they are to be named, they 

 must be named correctly ; if they are to be arranged, whose 

 arrangement should be followed ? In the first place, how is 

 the collector to ascertain the names of the species he has col- 

 lected ? He may consult books, and refer to descriptions or 

 figures, or he may compare specimens with some collection 

 which is supposed to be rightly named ; and nine-tenths of 

 our collections, I regret to say, are named in this latter way : 

 they are copies of copies ; they have never been compared 

 with the original ; if there was a blunder in the copy, still 

 they copy it, having no notion of correcting it. The conse- 

 quence has been that our collections of Lepidoptera } and 



