350 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



have another addition, — a thing of beauty ; and it is sufficient. 

 Of such are the great mass of us. Are we to be discouraged ? 

 and is our work useless ? I say decidedly, no ! The man who 

 can turn, after his daily toil, to admire his beautiful entomological 

 treasures is to be encouraged. It is educative, as far as it goes. 

 It leads such a man to think, and opens to him something 

 unknown to others of his own class. To those who already have 

 a fair education it is a pleasure and a recreation, a labour of love. 

 If we do the great mass of humanity no good, we do them no 

 harm ; and we improve our own minds. Among such, I class 

 myself; and it is worthy of remark how man)^ entomologists, 

 who, commencing to collect in their boyhood, obliged when 

 manhood comes on to give up their favourite pursuit to provide 

 for their daily bread, take to it again in mature years as a relief 

 and pleasure after their final struggle for mere existence is over. 

 Entomology with the mass of entomologists is a recreation, 

 whatever they may choose to call it — Science or otherwise. As 

 such, it gives us great pleasure and affords some amount of 

 education ; at the same time I defy anyone to prove that a man 

 would improve his education by taking up Entomology as a 

 study, compared with what he would gain if he spent the same 

 amount of time on other subjects. 



With Mr. Calvert's answer to the question, " Of what 

 educational value is such a collection ? " (Entom. 197), I partly 

 agree and partly disagree. I perfectly agree with the first part, 

 but the latter seems ridiculous. Who is most likely to get wet ? 

 The collector who goes into the country collecting at every 

 possible chance and at all times of the day and night, or the man 

 who, choosing his own time, goes from his own house to the 

 museum, and can make every preparation for the weather. I 

 should like Mr. Calvert to have been with me the first night I 

 spent on the Deal sand-hills in 1883. He would have found that 

 collectors sometimes get wet. 



His answer to the last question (Entom. 198), "From an 

 educational and scientific standpoint is the game worth the 

 candle ? " does not seem to touch the question. He shows that 

 it sometimes may be from a monetary point of view, but surely 

 this wants a good stretch of imagination to convert it into 

 " educational and scientific." The collecting and arranging of 

 entomological specimens, I have tried to show, has an educational 



