BRITISH BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 103 



their country, I deprecate frequent ' changes in 

 the cabinet.' ' Let well alone ' is a good and 

 wholesome proverb, applicable both politically and 

 entomologically." 



Although forming a natural continuation of a 

 treatise on Butterflies, it was not until 1859 that 

 the " History of British Moths " was taken in hand. 

 The authorship of this work involved greater diffi- 

 culties than any to which he had hitherto given 

 his attention. For a long time it had been his 

 wish to bring out a "History of British Moths" 

 with coloured figures of every species, but his 

 printer, Mr. Fawcett, had always shrunk from the 

 task ; he accordingly decided to undertake it on 

 his own responsibility, employing his own artists. 

 It was arranged that it should appear in monthly 

 parts, as the " Birds " had done ; and seeing there 

 were about two thousand British species to be 

 figured and described, the magnitude of the under- 

 taking was even at first sight considerable. One 

 great difficulty in preparing the work lay in this, 

 that, as every species had to be figured, specimens 

 of each must be obtained for the engravers, and 

 many of these were so rare that it was hard to 

 obtain the loan of them ; one was in this private 

 collection or museum, and another in that ; one 

 here, and one there. Like his other works on 

 natural history, this one was written for all classes. 

 Indeed, he had himself no taste for books that were 

 worded in highly scientific language ; such treatises 

 seemed to him to deter from, rather than invite to, 



