1875-1876.] l %5 



On 29th March, the President, Rev. William Macllwaine, 

 D.D., in the Chair, a paper was read by Rev. John Bristow 

 A.M., entitled " Practical Hints to Collectors of Lepidoptera."* 



When I was a school-boy almost every school-boy of my 

 acquaintance was making a collection, either of birds' eggs or of 

 butterflies and moths, yet I learn from the Secretary of the Club, 

 that while among its members there are distinguished botanists, 

 geologists, and archaeologists, there are but very few who have 

 paid any attention to entomology. At first sight this appears 

 strange; amongst my boyish friends neither botany or geology 

 were as attractive as entomology, and certainly, so far as beauty 

 of form and colour go, I may challenge any collection of dried 

 plants or drier fossils, to compare with a collection of well preserved 

 insects. That a branch of natural history, which to the beginner 

 is so very attractive and interesting, should have failed to secure a 

 very much larger band of votaries amongst us, while other branches 

 —which in the beginning are less attractive, however absorbing 

 they may afterwards become— have many adherents, seems to me 

 to be due, to a great extent, to ignorance. Ignorance of what 

 may be done in this department, even in a comparatively barren 

 locality, and ignorance of how to do it. 



I think, therefore, the best way in which I can give a stimulus 

 to the study of entomology in connection with this society, is to 

 show practically what work may be done, and how to do it. 



It has often been said to me by persons, when looking over my 

 collection, and these persons well informed on many other matters, 

 "Surely these insects are not to be met with in this country. 

 I never saw these large and beautiful moths flying about." And 

 when asked how many different kinds of butterflies and moth s 

 were to be met with in this country, the answer given was often, 

 " about half a dozen butterflies, and a few dingy moths that come 

 to the lamps on a summer's evening, beside the troublesome 

 little clothes' moths." All small moths are by them classed in 

 that mischievous brotherhood, clothes' moths. 



* In accordance with a special resolution of the Club this paper is printed 



