UNIFORMITY IN PINNING AND SETTING LEPlDOPTEBA. 299 



intellectual point of view, which I did not dream of when I con- 

 tented myself with being a ** mere collector." Now that Darwin, 

 Wallace & Co. have paved the way, the time has fully arrived 

 when those who are interested in insects should do something 

 more than amass large collections, which, without a proper 

 method and system, are practically devoid of scientific interest 

 or value whatever. The possessors of them are not one whit, in 

 my mind, superior to ordinary postage-stamp collectors. 



Birmingham, Aug. 30tb, 1896. 



UNIFORMITY IN PINNING AND SETTING LEPIDOPTEKA. 

 By Wilmot Tunstall, F.R.M.S., F.S.A. 



The subject of " Uniformity in Pinning and Setting Lepi- 

 doptera " has not hitherto received the amount of attention its 

 importance deserves. I was therefore glad to see the subject 

 occupying the front page of your September issue. The various 

 articles which have appeared under these heads (Entom. xxix. 

 83, 125, 231, 269) cannot fail to be interesting and instructive 

 to experienced and inexperienced lepidopterists alike, since they 

 help one to make trials and comparisons, and adopt the little 

 wrinkles of others, and so arrive at the most convenient, as well 

 as the quickest, neatest, and best, methods of working. 



No one who has made any attempts at exchanging can fail 

 to have been impressed with the absolute truth of what has been 

 said with reference to the great want of uniformity in pinning 

 and setting. Quite as often as not, when an exchange has been 

 made, it is found that the specimens received are so differently 

 set from one's own made-up series that the symmetry of the 

 whole would be entirely spoiled by the addition of the exchanged 

 specimens. This is often both disappointing and annoying, and 

 is not as it ought to be ; for when British Lepidoptera or other 

 entomological specimens are exchanged they ought all to be so 

 set that they will look uniform in any strictly British collection. 

 Here I should like to say most emphatically that this is quite 

 possible of attainment. I am surprised none of your corre- 

 spondents have gone to the bottom of the matter, and suggested 

 a real and practical way out of the difficulty. Mr. Searancke's 

 contrivance {ante, p. 231), though novel, is no remedy, for it 

 would only be necessary for two persons to pin a given species 

 on different blocks, and then exchange, to show that no uni- 

 formity had been arrived at. Mr. Leech {ante, p. 270) does in 

 part suggest the remedy, but does not, I think, go far enough. 

 It seems to me the matter should be taken in hand by our recog- 

 nized leading and representative British Entomological Society 



