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have we experienced during our lives than the butterfly 
hunting of our schoolboy days? with what joy did we 
secure our first ‘‘red admiral”! what breathless excitement 
attended the capture of our first ‘‘ clouded yellow’! Pos- 
sibly we were first impelled by a sheer inbred love of sport, 
or it may be that it was simply their bright colours and 
airy flight that attracted our attention; but we had not 
grown much older before our heedless captures began to 
interest us. We became conscious that our pastime had a 
fascination for us. In our anxiety to amass a complete 
collection we set to work with increasing energy; our 
collecting expeditions were frequent, we learned how and 
where to get many species reputed good, we became adepts 
at rearing larvee, we even went so far asto make fragmentary 
notes of any matters that appeared to us likely to be useful 
for our future guidance. We became quite proficient in the 
differentiation of species, and held very strong views on the 
right of certain forms to specific rank or otherwise. 
The average lepidopterist of half a century ago probably 
seldom got much beyond this point. He generally hada 
very good knowledge of field work; was well up in the 
habits of insects; knew something of botany in so far as it 
was an assistance to him in his entomological work; he 
could tell you the history of each specimen in his collection, 
although he disdained the use of labels, and had some crude 
ideas on the question of classification, founded chiefly on his 
observations in the field. Sundry problems did no doubt 
present themselves to his mind from time to time, and were 
answered so far as his intimate knowledge of the Lepi- 
doptera and preconceived ideas would allow, their explana- 
tion being regarded largely as matters of individual opinion 
rather than of fact. 
There is an old saying that ‘‘ familiarity breeds contempt.” 
However true this may be in its broad bearing on things of 
every-day life, it will not apply to the works of | nature. “The 
more intimate we become with them the more do they 
interest us; the more are we impelled to seek their meaning. 
This is just the case with the lepidopterist of the present 
day; the numerous problems that have presented them- 
selves to successive generations have so persistently forced 
themselves upon his attention that he can no longer ignore 
them ; he busies himself in seeking their solution among the 
many facts that are continually coming to his knowledge. 
Almost at his first step, however, he feels that ‘chill of 
poverty,” he sees only too plainly the hopelessness of finding 
