22 FEBRUARY. 



teachable spirit be sedulously cultivated; and, if a 

 younger entomologist should require information at your 

 hands, do not refuse it, but recall to your mind the time 

 when you were " among the pots," and were craving 

 for information of the same kind ; and remember also, 

 that "he that watereth shall be watered." 



Now with respect to entomological books, these are 

 of two kinds — good, and good for nothing; those 

 written to instruct, by men well conversant with the 

 subject they treat of, having acquired their knowledge 

 by a long course of study, not only in the library, but 

 practically in the woods and fields from actual ob- 

 servation; and those written by fireside naturalists, 

 whose writings smell more strongly of tea and toast than 

 of the morning air — meditations began and finished by 

 the parlour fire — while the authors " babble of green 

 fields and smiling hedgerows." These are the blind 

 guides ; the men who make sweeping assertions with- 

 out a particle of foundation for them. The following 

 extract, bearing directly upon the subject in hand, 

 will illustrate my meaning; it is from an article on 

 " Mosses and their Allies," inserted in the " Illus- 

 trated Magazine of Art " (vol. i. N. S. p. 183). It 

 may be taken in exception, that this is not a strictly 

 Natural History jyublication, but I would answer that 

 it is a strictly educational one, and, therefore, that accu- 

 racy in its statements should be a prominent and leading 

 feature. The author states that, " Lovely as is this tribe 

 of plants (Mosses), we cannot give a good report of 

 them as ministering directly to the life of any part of 

 the animal creation. They do not furnish nectar for 



