THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 127 



Some Remarks on Collecting and Collectors. By 



W. Arnold Lewis, F.L.S. 



(Entpm. viii. 103.) 



Like others of your readers I take au interest in the 

 subject which Mr. IL R. Cox has descanted upon in the last 

 number of the ' Entomologist,' and with your permission I 

 will write down some reflections which have suggested 

 themselves to me in a collector's experience of several 

 years. 



I can confirm Mr. Cox's reference to "the good old free 

 spirit of collecting." Free enough, in all conscience, that 

 collecting was. 1 have myself spoken with a gentleman who 

 in one year captured on the south coast eight hundred 

 specimens of Colias Hyale, and I recollect that he boasted 

 roundly of the exploit ! The same once informed me, 

 when 1 was in search of the second brood of Leucophasia 

 Sinapis, that I need not expect again to see that insect in 

 the neighbourhood, because he had that season taken the 

 whole spring brood. It is possible that your correspondent 

 has himself heard of these incidents, or others like them ; 

 and on these facts I should wish to make one "or two 

 remarks. 



Anyone who captures eight hundred butterflies of one 

 kind, when his own collection receives perhaps four-and- 

 twenty, must have a very distinct motive. Mr. Cox speaks 

 most truly when he hints that " the pleasure of entomological 

 rambles" could have little to do with such a feat. What 

 pleasure, in truth, could come from taking the lives of eight 

 hundred defenceless Hyale? After the capture of, let us say, 

 the first one hundred and fifty, sensations of "pleasure" 

 must have begun to give way to physical fatigue. In 

 Mr. Cox's expressive words, the object was once "principally 

 a day's innocent pleasure, and not so much with a view to 

 amassing a large number of specimens in the shortest 

 possible time." But certainly in the case of the eight 

 hundred, "amassing the large number" must have remained 

 the motive long after pleasure, innocent or not, had left the 

 scene. Setting out eight hundred butterflies must be a very 

 tiresome business, and probably no other collector has expe- 

 rience of the labour it entails ; seven hundred and seventy-six 



