4550 Natural-History Collectors. 



me to receive so many cheering, valuable, and useful books and letters, 

 especially as a long time had passed since hearing from you, and I had 

 began to feel disconsolate. The seven vols, of 'Suites a Buffon' I very 

 much needed, especially the Hyraenoptera part, and henceforward 

 you may depend upon it the bees, ants, &c, will feel the effect, and 

 I hope many curious notes of habits can be prepared for the ' Trans- 

 actions.' You did quite right to send me the two vols, of Jardin des 

 Plantes Catalogues. These catalogues are very necessary, as the best 

 books we can get only describe a small portion of the subjects, which 

 deficiency the catalogues supply, and thus a complete guide to col- 

 lecting is made up between them. The last time I wrote (January 

 last) I informed you of the safe arrival of not only the box of books you 

 sent in May, 1853, but also the long-lost parcel of May, 1852, so that 

 up to the present time not a single article or letter you have advised 

 me as forwarded per Singlehurst & Co. is missing. I have not had 

 such good fortune with the ' Illustrated News' by mail; I have not 

 received more than half the numbers sent ; therefore do not send me 

 any more by that conveyance. As to books I am quite set up in all 

 the orders of insects, and do not require anything now except first-rate 

 Monographs, as they appear, such as what I ordered of you, Lacor- 

 daire's ' Phytophages,' and also such as F. Smith's Monograph of 

 Cryptocerus, and Catalogues of British Museum and Jardin des 

 Plantes, as they appear. They at present seem to be working on 

 different families and orders : of course, when the London and Paris 

 Catalogues are on the same group, it is not necessary to send both. 

 Chemnitz you can continue to send as it appears. In my January 

 letter I ordered a few British Museum Catalogues, amongst them 

 Part 1, Hemiptera ; but, however, all the Zoological Catalogues (ex- 

 cept those on British Fauna only) from this day forward would be use- 

 ful to me, and you can send me them by degrees. Please thank 

 Messrs. Hanbury, Janson and Baly for their notes and letters : to Mr. 

 F. Smith I will write, if there be time, before post closes. To Mr. 

 Hanbury please say I never lose an opportunity of acquiring objects 

 in his department. The difficulty is not in collecting together plenty 

 of different kinds of balsams, resins, or medical roots and barks (really 

 so or only reported), the real difficulty is in identifying these separate 

 objects with the tree which produces them, and acquiring a flowering 

 specimen of it. This is much aggravated by the loose terminology of 

 the Indians, who give the same name to very different things. The 

 same applies to useful woods, but still by degrees I am getting a cor- 

 rect knowledge of these things. To Mr. Baly please say that I will 



