ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 51 



Mr. Gibson also exhibited specimens on the following very rare butterflies which he 

 was so fortunate as to have captured at Toronto : Thecla Ontario, Pamphila Baracoa and 

 Brettus ; also Pyrameis carye, which was taken by Mr. Tyers. T, Ontario has only been 

 twice taken before in the Province from which it is named ; the other three are new to 

 our Canadian list. 



Mr. D. Brainerd disagreed with the writer of the paper regarding the superiority 

 of light to sugar as an attraction for moths. Mr. Winn said that he had found sugar the 

 best bait until June 15th, but after that flowers were the most attractive. He had taken 

 160 specimens between 7.15 and 8.15 one evening. 



THE COLLECTOR 

 AND HIS RELATION TO PURE AND APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY. 



By F. M. Webster, Wooster, Ohio. 



The insect collector may or may not be a professional entomologist. He may be a 

 minister, doctor, lawyer, merchant, soldier or sailor. He may be confined within the 

 walls of a counting-room, bank, office, study or other place of occupation, during eight 

 or ten hours of the six days of the week, for eleven months of the year, or he may be 

 camped for months in the wilderness, or spend months on the sea, with an occasional 

 respite of a few weeks on shore. There are few professional collectors, the major portion 

 of these being engaged in other pursuits, and spending the time generally devoted to rest 

 or recreation by the majority of people, in the collection of insects, in itself a most pleasing 

 and healthy sort of recreation, provided ones tastes trend in that direction. Thus it 

 occurs that a collector may be confined to a limited area, or he may be able to carry on 

 his work in widely distant localities. I know of a soldier, wounded and in a hospital, 

 who managed to make a considerable collection of insects and especially such as are 

 readily attracted to light, and another whose business, that of a commercial traveller, 

 takes him from one end of the country to another. I have in my own collection, specimens 

 taken at almost all hours of the day or night, under almost every condition imaginable, 

 and in as great a diversity of localities. 



Outside of professional entomologists, the collection of insects is largely a labor of 

 love, with no hope or expectation of any compensation whatever. This, then, would 

 appear to be the proper place to discuss the value of these self imposed labors to the 

 science of entomology. 



While much has been said and written, both pro and con, relating to the value of 

 the services of those men and woman who collect but do not study insects, it has always 

 appeared to me that in this, as in almost everything else, we should make a distinction 

 between the careful collector and the one who, strictly speaking, could hardly be termed 

 a collector at all. Of course industry and energy here as elsewhere, count for much, but 

 care, neatness and accuracy are imperative. Then, again, there has existed a certain 

 condition of affairs, happily now fast disappearing, under which a collector was obliged 

 to humbly submit his hard earned material to a specialist for determination, which 

 specialist, after condescending to go over it, retained the specimens for his trouble, and 

 in the case of new forms, frequently forgot to give credit to the collector when naming 

 and describing them. It was thought sufficient to state that specimens were from Canada, 

 California or Texas. The description being sometimes drawn up from a single specimen, 

 thought to be typical of course, because it was the only one in the hands of the describer, 

 was ofcen faulty, eo that the danger to the pure science from discolored or deformed ma- 

 terial getting into such hands was very considerable. It goes without saying if you 

 place a lot of carelessly collected and prepared material in the hands of a specialist, who 

 is simply a species maker, and whose judgment and accuracy is not above question, the 

 result will be not only n. gen. et sp., ad infinitum, but time has shown that the sort of 

 entomology that such work represents had be3t be spoken of in connection with an ?. 



