OF TWO MISCREANTS 213 



after him. (No doubt he would grow pink and 

 pretend not to hear, going on with head high.) 

 But now nobody noticed the net, and wherever 

 one went one found someone with whom to 

 exchange information and specimens or, should 

 one say swop confidences and corpses ? 



Yes, there were fewer lepidoptera than formerly. 

 The common things that nobody wanted would 

 always abound, but undoubtedly the time was not 

 far off when the rarer kinds would be worked out. 

 He announced the approach of this frightful 

 catastrophe with the absolute certitude of Jonah 

 crying the destruction of Nineveh, but without 

 any visible emotion. Yet there was a certain 

 sadness in his voice, as if he contemplated the dis- 

 appearance from England of those rarer kinds 

 regretfully (for the good hunting), but fortified by 

 the knowledge that he would be in at the death. 

 Though every moth should become extinct, 

 nothing could ever rob him of the memory of, for 

 example, fifteen Red Underwings slain on a July 

 night in the year now current. 



The fact was, he went on, that nobody was con- 

 tent with the number they had of any given insect. 

 It was always possible to make a series more com- 

 plete, whether by more perfect individuals, or by a 

 wider range of variety. The Silver Washed Fri- 

 tillary, now. There was a butterfly, now, that was 



