420 Mr. D. Sharp on the cost and 
calculating the cost of insect collections. The chief 
item is the cost of collecting ; and by far the larger part 
of the collecting that has been, and is being, carried on, 
is done as a labour of love. The number of those who 
have persistently collected insects for the remuneration 
they could obtain for it has always been extremely small, 
though a good many have tried it and abandoned it, 
owing partly to their own want of skill, and partly to the 
uncertainty and inequality of the demand. In order to 
calculate the cost of a collection, one must in the first 
place put a value on the labour of the collector, and in 
doing this we must treat the matter from a purely 
business point of view. It is quite true that men whose 
time is worth £1000 or more per annum devote some of 
it to forming a collection of insects, and it is equally 
true that men who only realise £100 per annum are 
frequently quite as successful entomologically as their 
more expensive—if I may be pardoned the expression— 
colleagues. I believe, however, that if any one wished 
to secure an entomologist of good natural ability to 
collect for him permanently in Britain, he could find 
such a man for about £150 per annum; and I take that 
therefore as the standard value of entomological labour. 
If we do this, and calculate what this labour should be 
expected to accomplish per annum over a number of 
years, we have then the data for approximating to the 
cost of a collection of insects. 
Let us suppose the collector to be limited to making a 
collection of British insects, collecting them, mounting 
them, naming, and preserving them. I have no doubt 
he could progress at the rate of 6000 specimens, repre- 
senting about 800 species, per annum. A very energetic 
and devoted man could do much more, but according to 
the conditions of our problem,—I am dealing with the 
case of ordinary men,—worth £150 per annum. And I 
am also taking into consideration the fact—and a very 
important one it is, as entomologists well know—that he 
is to secure the rare as well as the common species. If 
we take the number of species of British insects at 
12,000, then, according to the above calculation, a fairly 
good collection of British insects, averaging twenty well- 
selected specimens of a species, would be formed in forty 
years at an expense of about £6000; and that, I think, 
is a very fair estimate. A collection of 12,000 species 
