248 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



(1) Whatever time is spent on the actual collecting of speci- 

 mens is time well spent, educationally and otherwise. One learns 

 incidentally something of Geography, Meteorology, Botany, and 

 perhaps a little G-eology. The collector's powers of observation 

 are greatly increased, and one can hardly find anything that has 

 a better educational value from this particular point of view. 

 The amount of time is therefore unimportant. The greater or 

 less the amount of time spent, the greater or less will be its gross 

 value. (2) As the specimens must be kept, whatever the subject 

 of study, the time spent on pinning need not be considered. In 

 my mind nearly the whole of the time spent on setting is wasted 

 educationally and scientifically. I certainly do not know exactly 

 what time entomologists, as a body, spend on setting, but I find 

 I can set about 20 to 25 insects per hour, on an average. Many 

 of the Tineina require a much greater amount of care, and 15 to 

 20 would be a fair estimate. Taking it, therefore, that a collector 

 takes 100 insects as the result of a day's collecting, he will be 

 about five hours setting his captures. Is the study of the 

 "flexibility of the wing, its debility, hardness," &c., worth this 

 time to a man who is seeking for self-improvement ? and when 

 this is repeated day after day and year after year this as a 

 result becomes ridiculous. Presuming I have spent on an 

 average 500 hours per year in setting insects for the last seven 

 years, am I to be told that the educational value of these things 

 is at all commensurate with the time spent? We do not get new 

 species every time we go out, and yet we get a large number 

 valuable to ourselves and friends. These have to be set — custom 

 demands it. The question is. Is the custom a good one ? and 

 what was the original reason of setting ? Considering the latter 

 question first, there is no doubt that setting was originated so 

 that all the wings might be studied. There is no doubt, then, 

 that the answer to the first question is, that the custom is a good 

 one. But what has setting developed, I might say degenerated, 

 into ? Science demands that we should be able to examine all the 

 wings. To have the wings, therefore, drawn out at any angle, so 

 that the whole of them is in view, should be sufficient. But what 

 do we find? We find that in 99 cases out of 100 our collectors 

 study symmetry, and symmetry only. What does it matter to 

 them so long as the angle between the anterior and posterior 

 wings is so exact that the most perfectly trained eye cannot 



