104 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
pure pursuit is getting more dishonest than English horse- 
dealing. 
A proof of the deterioration of the manners of most of our 
collectors is that they are now generally considered, by 
the non-entomological public, as persons of questionable 
character. A gentleman, maybe perhaps one of large inde- 
pendent property, or perhaps a “reverend divine,” is staying 
with his family at a village; ere he exhibits his deadly 
weapons he is considered quite comme il faut, but let him 
once show his amusement he is immediately dubbed as 
“only a fly-catcher;” he is snubbed by the world in general, 
and looked at by all as some one to be carefully avoided. 
This is no mere conjecture, as I have repeatedly of late 
noticed it in various parts of England. 
While collecting last year, in the Hampshire woods, I 
came across a dealer that I well knew. On showing him my 
night’s total captures at sugar, Mr. Z. remarked, with an 
indescribably sly chuckle: “Oh, yes! Ah! He, he! but 
the other box;” insinuating that I had another private fuller 
box in my pocket. This is not said against the dealers; by 
no means; but merely to show what little faith they now have 
in the word of amateurs, so much dissembling and deceit are 
there among them. 
I knew a gentleman, of considerable standing in the ento- 
mological world, who succeeded in obtaining from a boy a 
somewhat mutilated specimen of a very rare butterfly ; it was 
caught at the end of the gentleman’s garden. On exhibiting 
it at one of our entomological meetings, a whisper was 
immediately started insinuating that it was very much like an 
imported German specimen; this remark soon developed 
itself in quiet corners into “decidedly German!” All this 
shows there is,in the present day much deception among 
collectors. 
Those who may chance to read these few hasty remarks 
will perhaps say: “ What is the wse of thus complaining ?” 
To which 1 reply: “Can we not start a new clique of 
collectors, who, throwing aside all contamination they may 
have imbibed from the modern school, will follow the Science 
in its original and pure manner, arrange their gatherings for 
a day’s sport, and collect or exchange in the style of the 
‘good old times ?’” 
H. Ramsay Cox. 
