SUCCESS TO ENTOMOLOGY. 



91 



educated, intellectual, men who have patronised entomology, have not 

 worked along paths, in which, whilst getting a maximum of pleasure 

 for their work, they would, at the same time, be pushing to its utmost 

 capacity, the science that should be the natural logical outcome of their 

 labours. This is the ideal, perhaps, yet it is strange so few reach it ; 

 it is quite certain that more could. Men now-a-days have not time. 

 What a scathing sarcasm on this is the fact that these same men who 

 excuse themselves thus, chortle with satisfaction, when, as men of the 

 world, they advise their friends that, if one wants a job done, it must 

 be given to a busy man. It does not pay, wails another, and the old 

 cry rings in one's ears — Man shall not live by bread alone. I wish to 

 drive home to my friends here the logical conclusion of their work, 

 work in the field, work at home, riz., that the proper record of their 

 observation and study, pushes on the wheels of knowledge, and, there- 

 fore, of science, and that the failure to do this leaves them, perhaps, 

 with a feeling pleasurable to themselves, still a selfish pleasure in 

 which none but themselves can have a share. I do not wish to 

 depreciate this self-satisfaction which, indeed, is necessary to the true 

 inward craving of the naturalist. He must still desire, when at work, 

 freedom from interruption, the — 



" Mossy cell, 



Where he may sit and rightly spell, 



Of every star that heaven doth shew, ' 



And every herb that sips the dew." 



To be of use to science, we want largely the temperament of the hermit, 

 but this nowadays is not enough ; we also want the knowledge of the 

 work done by our fellow men, and the more we find our heaven in the 

 one, the more certainly shall we unselfishly appreciate to the full the 

 blessings of the other. For, after all, and in spite of this, man is by 

 instinct a gregarious animal, and the blessings conferred on us by 

 societies like this cannot be gainsaid ; at meetings like this we recognise 

 to the full our humanity in spite of our work ; it girds us for greater 

 achievement and deeper mentality. 



There are, however, two classes of people who puzzle me beyond words, 

 when one is considering the advance of any scientific subject, entomology 

 not excepted. One is represented by the man who, with little time 

 (or little capacity, for usually the terms are convertible or synonymous), 

 fancies that no one should go ahead faster than himself. Such are 

 everywhere, they gird at the detail of observations, at the rapid increase 

 of facts, at the change of a name, at the presentation of a fresh view 

 of their subject. Life is too short to stop for them, they must be left 

 behind. The other is the class that goes ahead so fast that its members 

 lose all sense of proportion of their own work, and publish their crude 

 ideas, because they cannot wait to clear away the facts from the verbiage, 

 and are too busy to strip the results of their observations from the 

 mixed mental medley that has accompanied the observations. For 

 some little time past, the Transactions of our leading Entomological 

 Society has not been altogether free from these crudities — doubtful facts, 

 hazy generalisations, will o'the wisp figments of the imagination, 

 superficial as they are wordy. Against this sort of scientific entomo- 

 logy we have to defend ourselves, or estimate it carefully at its proper 

 value. It is also a sign of the times, in certain high quarters to see in 

 the ethics of insects, a symbol of the ethics of the human, and in the 



