28 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society Vol. XII 



trembling voice with a sugg-estion of nearby tears, " my mother- 

 in-law was one also." Later I found that the said connection by 

 marriage was a stiidier of ants and their habits. So that her 

 pursuits and my own were really more alike than if she had 

 followed taxidermy as her mourning son-in-law had intimated. 

 The term entomologist does not seem generally understood 

 throughout good collecting regions. Several times, in New 

 Hampshire, when I have owned to being one I have found it 

 understood to mean a member of some religious denomination. 

 As one very old man in Jackson said when I owned the soft 

 impeachment, " Well, I dare say, it's a good enough belief, but, as 

 for me, I'm an old fashioned Hardshell Baptist like my folks 

 before me and I ain't no use for your new sects." I did not 

 set the old man right — what was the use ? — ^but left him standing 

 in the road gazing sadly after me and doubtless wondering how 

 an intelligent being could accept other creed than that of the 

 Hardshell Baptists' ! I was once " held up " in a sandy Florida 

 road by a solemn little girl of nine or ten, and denounced to my 

 face as a " cruel, wicked woman " for putting to death harmless 

 insects. I can see her now, as I look back, with her old fashioned, 

 pale, pinched little face looking into mine, her thin little hand with 

 uplifted finger being shaken at me, as she called down judgment 

 upon my head. Did any of you ever try to defend your taking so 

 many lives when talking with one who thinks it a sort of cruelty- 

 to-animals pursuit ? I never tried harder than I did that day. I 

 told the child how painlessly the insects died by my hand; how 

 short their natural lives were at the best, and how apt they were 

 to die violent deaths, from storm, attacks of birds, etc. But oh, 

 the look of scorn on that small face as she listened, and when I 

 paused she said calmly, " Just talk, talk ! " and I felt smaller 

 than one of the flea-beetles I had just been capturing. I learned 

 later that the child's mother was a vegetarian, thought it wicked 

 to kill or eat any animal or wear its skin, carrying her ideas into 

 everything and going to violent extremes. Small wonder that 

 her child should try to do missionary work in the same field. 



But I have had many, many pleasant encounters while collect- 

 ing ; acquaintances, yes, even warm friendships have been formed 

 through chance meetings on the road, by strearn, or in the woods. 



