10 LEPIDOPTEROLOGIE COMPAREE 



cations of the kmd illustrated with photographie process-blocks, 

 less frequently with carcfully drawn figures in black-and-white, 

 and oftcn with heavily coloured plates conceived in Leipzig, 

 hawked round tho book-markets of Europe, and inserted, some- 

 times with hidicrous incongruity, into vohimes bearing but indi- 

 rectly on the subject-titles. Our insular fauna and flora being, 

 hkc that of most islands, something différent and apart from 

 ihe fauna and flora of continental countries, the resuit of this 

 promiscuous picture-mongering was bewildering to students 

 whose interest m a spécial branch of science went further than 

 a glance at the figures. The publishers, of course, were net to 

 blâme. Iheir public asked for picture-books, and the home 

 supply was unequal to thc^ demand. Sometimes the letterpress 

 was written up to date, more or less. In the majority of cases 

 the errors and outworn théories of writers, whose first éditions 

 dated a centur}' maybe ago, were re-decanted with punctilious 

 accuracy as the vintage of modem research. Such publications, 

 however, can only be regarded as cphemeral. They serve their 

 commercial purpose, and, after ail, in their way may hâve helped 

 to stir latent interest m the wonder and beauty of the " daedal 

 world " of nature. 



ïhe reason of the failure of nature books lo holcl the market 

 against other and severer forms of literature is not far to seek. 

 .4 la guerre, comme à la guerre. The mmds and thoughts of men 

 hâve been concentratcd upon the urgent necessities of modem 

 warfare; and, so far as the naturalist is concerned, the harvest 

 of his discovcries and observation bas been gathered abundantly 

 m the practice of the hospitals, the trenches and the cajups, 

 where multitudes havo been collected together m circumstances 

 and conditions witliout parallcl m the world's history. The 

 nature book of the war has yet to bc written — the record of the 

 work done by the men who hâve eliminated from war perhaps 

 its most fruitful causes of mortality, the ravages of disease 

 direct 1\- due to fungus and insect or germ agency. There will 

 also be nature books of the old pattern, which will make a wider 



