HINTS TO COLLECTORS. 13 
science and religion at a time when scarcely any one 
thought of them. When you have reached a convent in 
the East, or a mission-station in the South Sea, you seem 
to be nearer home. You feel that you are amongst 
people whose sympathies incline into the same direction 
as your own, the mode of living also beginning to tell 
upon your animal spirits, and you fly to the library, 
limited though it may be, to have an hour with the 
great minds of civilization. 
Our stay at Lakeba being restricted to a few hours, I 
made all possible haste to collect specimens of the vege- 
tation. Quite a troop of boys followed, carrying baskets 
which they made in an incredibly short space of time, 
out of the leaves of the cocoa-nut palm. Determined 
to collect everything we could lay hands on, we accumu- 
lated about fifty different species, forming quite a load 
for our young attendants. The true secret of making 
-comprehensive collections, whether of objects of any 
kind or details of information, is to secure them if pos- 
sible the first time on coming in contact with them. 
One has it always in his power to reject what is worth- 
less. To go on the principle that you may come toa 
place where you can get them better, is an unsound one 
to adopt, and one that often leads to mortification. 
Not only do the eye and ear get accustomed to the 
objects or facts of search, and the hand neglects to 
secure them, because they no longer strike us as new, 
but it often happens that they are extremely local, and 
are never met with again. When I take up my abode 
in a district, for the purpose of exploring it botanically 
for instance, I begin by gathering the plants that grow 
