THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 129 



Meliloti, I could well understand my being supposed to catch 

 burnets for my living. But I see no harm in that. If a 

 collector takes insects by the hundred of a kind, there is 

 little blame to the unsophisticated in supposing that he does 

 it because he is paid. Dealers pure and simple I have 

 nothing to say about. By their trade they are bound to 

 find, catch, and carry away every insect with the most trifling 

 value. They work for money, not for love ; and they are 

 outside the discussion altogether. For the rest, those who 

 treat others well are well treated in return. As I neither cut 

 down people's trees, nor flog them till I leave beneath each 

 one a heap of leaves and broken branches, and as, speaking 

 generally, I do not commit barbarisms when entomologizing, 

 which I should shun at other times, I never find myself 

 unwelcome, though everyone may know well enough that I 

 go out catching moths and butterflies. I do not understand 

 why others should have different experience. 



As to collectors' demeanour towards each other, that is a 

 subject which has caused me reflections' times and oft. The 

 mysteries made about a locality ; petty dissimulations about 

 lime of appearance (to throw another off" the scent) ; conceal- 

 ments of the facts of captures being made ; — these and other 

 paltry and more detestable things are, I fear, common. It 

 must be really shocking to encounter a collector with a stock- 

 in-trade of all these arts. Mr. Walton, so long ago as 1835, 

 wrote on this very subject in the 'Entomological Magazine' 

 (vol. ii. p. 279) in very feeling and earnest language, which all 

 who have the opportunity should peruse. Mr. Shield ('Prac- 

 tical Hints,' pp. 19, 44, 191) and others have, from time to 

 time, done what they could to bring about a better state of 

 things. But remonstrances, notwithstanding, the complaint 

 is, I believe, too well founded; and I regret very much to 

 avow my own conviction that there is only one complete and 

 certain cure for it. The evil has grown entirely out of the 

 fictitious value ascribed to native specimens, and must vanish, 

 like a breath, directly foreign specimens are admitted to have 

 an equal worth. I have all the prejudices of one who for 

 sixteen years has collected none but British Lepidoptera; 

 and the intention which I have at length definitely formed of 

 opening my collection to foreign specimens (or rather taking 

 up the European fauna) first had its rise in the condition of 



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