Insects. 4181 



Entomologicul Localities. By J. W. Douglas, Esq. 



(Continued from page 4001). 



Terra Incognita. 



There is a mystery respecting those persons who, having been 

 ardent entomologists, blazing for a time like comets, like them also 

 vanish. Keats, the poet, it is said, " was snuffed out by an article ; " 

 — a very definite one it must have been ! Entomologists are men of 

 sterner stuff ; and though they have at times been impaled on the 

 point of a pen dipped in gall, there has been only a passing irritation ; 

 none of them ever died of such a wound. And yet, the passion ap- 

 pears to die out with some before its time. Does the afflatus become 

 extinct, or is it not rather overlaid with the pleasures of sense or the 

 cares of life ? Every one that drops Entomology, has lost some of the 

 higher enjoyments of his nature, even though he has been but a col- 

 lector of specimens. It is common to decry the mere collector, and 

 to exalt the cut-and-dry naturalist of books and systems. Neither 

 course is necessary or proper ; they are mostly two different kinds of 

 men ; the qualifications required for the two employments are seldom 

 conjoined in one individual, and without the collector the book-maker 

 could not exist. The out-door naturalist has a higher source of 

 beauty and impulse to devotion open to him, and his occupation 

 should rank higher in our estimation. I know men who have devoted 

 a life-time to collecting, — wandering in the woods and fields ; and if 

 they are not saints, still, who shall say how much better they are for 

 the amenities of Nature with which they have been so familiar, than 

 they would have been without such influences ! 



Constant change is a law of Nature, and the great charm of human 

 existence is a corresponding love of the novelty. Gray, the poet, 

 himself a naturalist, said the best way to enjoy life was constantly to 

 have something going on ; the naturalist, and especially the entomo- 

 logist, is always in a position to fulfil this condition, and is the last 

 man to find time hang heavy on his hands. I know his employment 

 has been called " busy idleness ; " and in this country, where the ma- 

 jority of the inhabitants are either engaged in trying to avoid being 

 killed by the climate, or, escaping this Scylla, fall into the Charybdis 

 of commerce, and are used up in its service, it may seem so ; and yet 

 it might very advantageously be used to palliate the ennui of the one 

 XII. E 



