60 Descriptions o/neio Ceylon CoUoptera. [no. 1, new series, 
to do so, for although he labors under distressing disadvantages in 
some respects, he happily enjoys a proportionate share of advan- 
tages in others. It is unsatisfactory in the extreme for an enthusi- 
astic entomologist to be obliged to let his collections go out of his 
own hands, see others reap the honors from them which are to be 
reaped on such occasions, or perhaps see as it were a gulf close 
over them, hear no more of them, and find himself forgotten. For 
what is a mere collector ? Let him display as much industry as 
possible, he is hardly looKed upon as an entomologist, certainly as 
long as he is prevented from publishing anything, not as a scienti- 
fic one. Now, if such a man merely delists from publishing the 
fruits of his researches, from want of resources to assist him to go 
creditably through such a task ; if he suffers his collections to go 
out of his hands because he is too true a lover of science not to 
see the credit in a great measure due to himself reaped by another 
rather than to hoard up his entomological treasures — a useless heap 
eventually to be destroyed by moths and time — I say, that a man 
who acts upon principles like these, finds himself not seldom dis- 
heartened in the prosecution of his studies, under difficulties such 
as I have set forth. If however, as I have endeavoured to point 
out, these difficulties can be overcome to a very considerable extent, 
is anything more natural than that he should be the herald of his 
own discoveries ? Could anything be more unkind and unge- 
nerous on the part of his scientific brethren at home than to oppose 
and discourage him by their disapprobation ? I might enlarge on 
this subject, which has been a sore one with me for a long time, 
but I think this is sufficient to direct the reader into the train of my 
ideas and to enable him to follow it up. 
I hasten therefore to conclude. As mentioned above, the tropi- 
cal entomologist has a proportionate share of advantages to balance 
what falls to his lot of the contrary. One of the advantages which 
he enjoys over his brethren at home is, that he has an opportunity of 
seeing and studying alive what can at home only be examined in a 
state differing more or less from that of life. Therefore, if he is 
enabled and expected to describe new species, it is moreover hiyhly 
desirable for the sake of the promulgation of sound information that 
he should do so, that he should avail himself of this, his principal 
