Advanced Theories 109 



of the species, is lacking altogether. The chief 

 cause of this regrettable lacuna is the super- 

 ficial method generally adopted. People catch 

 an insect, stick a long pin through it, fix it in 

 the cork-bottomed box, gum a label with a 

 Latin name underneath its feet, and let its 

 history end there. It is not thus that I under- 

 stand the duties of an entomological biographer. 

 It is no use telling me that this or that species 

 has so many joints to its antennae, so many 

 nervures to its wings, so many hairs on a region 

 of the belly or thorax ; I do not really know 

 the insect until I am acquainted with its manner 

 of life, its instincts and its habits. 



And see the immense and luminous advan- 

 tage which a description of this kind, told in 

 two or three words, would possess over those 

 long descriptive details, sometimes so hard to 

 grasp. Suppose that you wish to make the 

 Languedocian Sphex known to me and you 

 begin by describing the number and distribution 

 of the nervures of the wings ; you speak to me 

 of cubital nervures and recurrent nervures. 

 Next comes the insect's pen-portrait. Black 

 here, rusty red there, smoky brown at the tips 

 of the wings ; black velvet in this part, silvery 

 down in that, a smooth surface in a third. It 

 is all very definite and minute : we must do 

 this much justice to the precision and patience 



