ON COLLECTIONS OF LEPIDOPTERA. 197 



up to position on the setting-board, things which could never be 

 learnt by museum-study. Another great drawback to typical 

 collections for scientific study is that not always one is able to 

 dispose of a spare hour for study during the hours a museum 

 might be open, whereas had the student a collection of his own 

 it is at his disposal whenever he has a spare moment (his not 

 being restricted to any special hours is a great advantage for true 

 entomological study) ; also, should he wish to destroy any of his 

 spechnens to study the neuration of any particular group, he is 

 at liberty to do so, for I am sure no museum could afford to have 

 their types destroyed, however great might be the desire of the 

 student to do so (even for deep and scientific research). That a 

 typical collection of British Lepidoptera (as also of the other 

 branches of Entomology) should exist in each of the provincial 

 museums I do certainly agree in ; that young collectors may there 

 be able to compare their specimens with typical ones, so that, 

 when they have any species which they are doubtful of, there is 

 the type to help them in their difficulty. Again, speaking of 

 Entomology as a business, — Wlio studies Entomology as a means 

 of earning his daily bread ? Not one in a thousand, for all who 

 take any delight in this beautiful study do it, I am sure, from 

 motives of pleasure, and at the same time that it serves as a 

 recreation from daily toil, so that the time lost in setting is more 

 than regained by the practical knowledge we acquire of the 

 strength of the tissues of wings of different genera, and which 

 could never be learnt by any other means than manipulation while 

 fresh (for even damped specimens have not that flexibility and 

 delicacy of wing to be found in recently-caught specimens). 



Mr. F. H. Perry Coste asks. What is the logical raison d'etre 

 of a collection of Lepidoptera? (1st) To show the fauna of a 

 country or part of a country ; (2ndly) to be able to see at a glance 

 the relation one form bears to another ; and (8rdly) a student of 

 Entomology needs something to reanimate him now and again 

 from hard study, and nothing is better able to awaken the 

 theoretical part of it than the practical part of forming a 

 collection. 



Of what educational value is such a collection ? Of the 

 istest ; as I have aforesaid, we cannot always find half an hour 

 spare time to go to the museum during its open hours, nor can 

 we learn much from coloured drawings (as the neuration is never 



