5536 Insects. 



clear of each other. 2ndly. It is said such a collection would not represent a British 

 Fauna. This will only apply to the assumed possibility of insects being called British 

 which have no title to the distinction ; but if the editor of the ' Entomologist's Annual' 

 would give up, as at present, a page or two every year for the insertion of specimens 

 proved by indisputable evidence to be British, this objection vanishes. 3rdly. It is said 

 that this plan would destroy the interest excited in looking for rare species, and thus 

 reduce the number of our collectors. I am not sure that a great part of the evil com- 

 plained of — i.e. dishonesty — would not be advantageously removed by weeding from 

 our collectors those who follow the pursuit for the mere purpose of getting hold of and 

 keeping those species which other people cannot: these are, par excellence, " mere 

 collectors ;" the Science would get on a great deal better without them, and they might 

 find a consolation in taking to pigeons or postage-stamps instead. The scientific 

 labourer would be spared the nuisance of being pestered with letters without end and 

 insects hopelessly mity and greasy. It would be a great relief if some of the S's and 

 T's alluded to by a writer in the ' Substitute' would give up collecting. But if, after 

 all, the majority of entomologists objected to the plan of introducing foreign insects, 

 and would rather prefer a limited and pure collection to one illustrated by specimens 

 from other parts of Europe, then I must fall back upon my second proposition ; and 

 this is to separate the chaff from the wheat. Let there be a united determination 

 among honest men to have no dealings of any kind with dishonest ones. If we cannot 

 have a republic, let us have an oligarchy. Let the tempter and the tempted — the 

 men with great means, who corrupt the men with small ones, and the men with small 

 means and no honesty — be equally avoided. Let them be tabbooed as men who 

 degrade Science into the lowest form of barter. The greatest half of the dishonesty 

 which is staining the fair name of this country exists in men who wear good coats and 

 condone the rascality which is corroding the best principles of the world around us. 

 % shall be glad to receive the opinions of entomologists on my views : if they cannot 

 agree with either, perhaps, from such a correspondence, I may be able to gather the 

 materials for a more practicable proposition than either of mine ; if not, and there is no 

 remedy, then, I fear, despite the high names of such men as Haworth and Stephens, 

 pf Kirby, of Ray or White, or the alumni of modern days, I must confess that I shall 

 request my friends to call me anything but an entomologist. — C. R. Bree ; Strick- 

 lands, Stowmarket, February 6, 1857. 



Lepidoptera and their Parasites. — So closely associated are these creatures with the 

 investigations of the Lepidopterist that to me it seems strange no one should have 

 thought of publishing, from time to time, short notices of such species as he may have 

 reared from the larvae and chrysalides of the various Lepidoptera which has produced 

 them. The Micro- Lepidopterist, especially, who has the time, and pays attention to 

 the rearing of these gaudy atoms, must have remarked the enormous preponderance of 

 the parasites he breeds over the insect itself, and one would think that surely a great 

 portion of these parasites must be new to Science, or, in very many instances at least, 

 rare: their minuteness favours this assumption, as also the comparatively few heads 

 who have hitherto done anything for these families. Then, again, where there are such 

 amongst them as are known to be common, their previous economy has been a matter 

 quite neglected, because of the want of means of knowing where and how to set about 

 looking for them in their earlier stages. Now, however, this can no longer be a hin- 

 drance, as probably the investigations in, and real natural history of, the Micro- 

 Lepidoptera are better understood than those of the larger groups, not but what they, 



