Insects. 5383 



"What is the cause of my failure ?" I answer, Many causes doubtless 

 combine to produce this undesirable result, such as want of experience, 

 a sticky and clayey soil, unfavourable [i.e. wet) weather, &c. But I 

 have no hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that, in nine cases 

 out of ten, want of success proceeds from want of patience. A meets 

 B. " Have you heard," enquires A, " of C's wonderful success in pupa 

 digging ? He has taken dodonaea, Chaonia, Fagi, ocularis, and I 

 don't know how many rare insects." " You don't say so," excitedly 

 replies B ; " how is it done ?" " Oh !" replies A, " simply enough : 

 take a common garden-trowel and a box lined with moss ; dig at the 

 roots of any good sized tree, or tear off the moss, and the pupae will 

 tumble into your box ad libitum." Enthusiastic B rushes home, 

 seizes a trowel, procures a box large enough to hold all the pupae for 

 miles round, and departs, buoyant with hope, upon his first pupa- 

 digging excursion. "Let me see," he soliliquises, " what shall I do 

 with my surplus pupae ? Ah ! Mr. L. wants trepida ; well, he shall 

 have two : and, if I remember rightly, Mr. S., who sent me so many 

 insects I did not possess, said he wanted ridens; therefore he shall 

 have three." While thus meditating a majestic oak strikes his eye. 

 " Lo !" he exclaims, " the very tree for both species !" Nervously, yet 

 firmly, he grasps the trowel, and approaches the unconscious tree. 

 Forthwith the trowel is inserted half a foot into the earth, and, by a 

 prodigious muscular effort, a gigantic sod is turned up. Eagerly he 

 gloats over and peers into the sod lying before him : nothing meets 

 his eye but a writhing worm and a wriggling centipede. " Why, how 

 is this ? here's nothing /" With crushed hopes he is about to leave, 

 when suddenly he remembers that he was directed to tap it gently, 

 and then tear the roots asunder. The sod is tapped ; an earwig ! 

 the sod is discerpted ; a woodlouse ! Perspiring with his exertions, 

 with aching back, he rises from his knees, looking rather foolish. 

 (N.B. The 'digger's feelings at this crisis, are often additionally 

 lacerated by a small mob of boys, looking on with gaping mouths). 

 He rises, I repeat, from his knees, takes up his huge box, and goes to 

 a poplar : the same process — the same result. Then to a birch : ditto, 

 ditto. This is too much ! Angry and disappointed he hastens home, 

 seizes a sheet of paper, and writes off to the author of "that paper" 

 on pupa digging to ask, " What is the cause of my want of success ?" 

 Partly, my friend, ignorance of the proper method of setting to work, 

 but, much more, the want of patience and perseverance. I know 

 nothing which requires a more constant and vigorous exercise of these 

 virtues than pupa digging. A total want of success is undoubtedly 



