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PREFACE. 



A Third Volume of the 'Entomologist' is completed, — 

 a volume in no respect inferior to its predecessors, and 

 offered at a price (seven shillings) that places it within the 

 reach of every collector of insects. I use the terra "collector" 

 advisedly ; Jirstf because it is transparent and truthful ; 

 secondly, because I like it. We have, in days gone by, met 

 with aspirations that we should become " entomologists," 

 something better than " mere collectors," which means that 

 we give up the fields and forests, the lanes and the streams ; 

 give up the net and laurel-box, and take to writing in a 

 language that no one can read ; that we print alternate words 

 in Holies, and stop every third word in the middle. 1 am 

 a " mere collector," and only wish I had the time at my 

 disposal to be a more assiduous one. The ' Entomologist' 

 is the "collector's" organ, his medium of communication with 

 his friends : it is hailed by all as a messenger of good : it 

 has been the source, the fountain-head, of new friendships 

 innumerable ; it is the cement which binds together old 

 friendships with a firmness and a strength that promise 

 perpetuity. 



Until very lately the few books on Entomology which we 

 possessed were written in a language we did not understand, 

 and printed in a manner we could not read ; in fact every 



