NOCTUAS. 103 



species. He rears them carefully, and then, 

 when they appear in the perfect form, he finds 

 himself the happy possessor of a number of 

 Moths between which the closest inspection can 

 detect no characteristic sufficiently distinctive to 

 warrant him in deciding upon the particular 

 species. 



Totally vanquished, he puts his specimens in a 

 box, and starts off to some standard collection, 

 feeling sure that he will return in a short time 

 with every specimen properly labelled. He 

 goes to the cabinets, and takes out a drawer of 

 Noctuas, every one of which looks exactly like 

 all the others, and to all appearance will do 

 equally well for identification with the specimens 

 in his box. A second, third, and fourth drawer 

 are examined with precisely the same results, 

 and, unless some experienced entomologist be at 

 hand to explain, the young investigator returns 

 as wise as he went perhaps a trifle wiser, as he 

 has learned to some extent his own ignorance. 



I narrate my own experience. Numbers of 

 Noctuas looked as like each other as the indi- 

 vidual sheep of a flock, and it was some time 

 before I could understand that the eye of an 

 entomologist could be trained as well as that of 

 a shepherd, and that both the one and the other 



