CHAPTER XXII. 

 BUTTERFLIES, MOTHS, AND BEETLES. 



M 



I SS ION ARIES, doctors, and military officers are 

 amongst the principal collectors of butterflies, moths, 

 and beetles. Now and then some one engaged in 

 the construction of a new road or railway has his 

 attention arrested by a beautiful or curious insect, and sud- 

 denly he too falls under the collecting spell. But there are 

 comparatively few professional collectors ; it is next to im- 

 possible for such to find enough purchasers to make the 

 business pay. The public is not interested in this sort of 

 achievement, though willing to spend money on the latest 

 sensational improbabilities from the fertile brain of an un- 

 truthful adventurer. 



It would cost the professional a small fortune to reach the 

 best collecting areas which the amateur visits at the expense 

 of some Mission society or the Government. To the amateur 

 it does not matter whether the locality or the season are 

 favourable or not, whether the specimens are common or rare, 

 whether he catches few or many ; to him it is merely a plea- 

 sant recreation to employ his leisure-time. It often means life 

 and health to a man, leading a lonely existence in some out-of-the- 

 way station, to have some object which will divert his thoughts 

 pleasantly and cause him to take the needful outdoor exercise. 

 "All work and no play makes jack a dull boy," whether he be 

 fifteen or fifty ; and there are healthier ways of spending one's 

 leisure than " killing time " with the assistance of a French novel 

 and v/hisky. 



There is a popular prejudice, that collecting butterflies is 

 " childish," because we unconsciously associate it with boyhood's 

 happy days of sailor-suit and Etons, and imagine that it is summed 

 up in the capture of a " Garden White." With a deeper insight 



