104 TtfE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



a study. In fact, it has all the elements which go to make 

 up a first-class hobby. It furnishes employment for hours 

 of recreation without encroaching on hours of business. It 

 doubles the pleasures of an excursion, turns a holiday to 

 the best account, and gives a purpose to the morning 

 constitutional. And it is at all times and everywhere 

 within reach in this glorious country ; for, though butter- 

 flies are most abundant and most splendid on the hills, 

 Bombay is not far behind. That one island, seven miles 

 long and half as broad, will afford to the collector more 

 different species than all the United Kingdom of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. And they will range from the tiny 

 blue, with its microscopic embroidery of gold, scarcely half 

 an inch in stretch of wing, to the magnificent ornithoptera 

 with an expanse of seven and a half inches. Even Dusty- 

 pore has its butterflies. 



Another charge brought against entomologists is that of 

 cruelty, and it is even more groundless. Nothing is more 

 unfeeling than ignorance, and nothing makes a man more 

 compassionate towards his little fellow-creatures than a 

 close acquaintance with them. This acquaintance can only 

 be gained, and is cheaply gained, by sacrificing the lives of 

 a few. I might dwell on the many pleasures of such an 



