The TOUHS HATSEAIIST: 



A Penny Weekly Magazine of Natural History. 



No. 148. SEPTEMBER 9th, 1882. Vol. 3. 



OBSERVATIONS. 

 TXTRITE another article," says 

 » » one of our correspondents, 

 " on Notes and Observations, and urge 

 your readers to send more of them. 

 Without undervaluing the other por- 

 tions of your paper, which I always 

 digest at my leisure, I like the Notes 

 and Observations best, and always turn 

 to them first." We have in various 

 ways urged our readers to send us 

 more notes ; and we have often thought 

 they were rather negligent in not let- 

 ting us have a more abundant supply. 

 But when we look at other magazines, 

 wc find the same thing obtains with 

 them. A few correspondents send 

 tlieir notes with the utmost regularity. 

 Wliatever they do of importance, what- 

 ever they take that is worth noticing, 

 is duly recorded in the pages of the 

 magazine they favour. But the large 

 number of readers that each must 

 have, appear to be content to benefit 

 by other people's communications, 

 without adding anything of their own 

 to the general stock of knowledge. No 

 doubt many collectors get into a groove, 

 as far as their collecting is concerned, 



and go over the same ground year 

 after year. These, no doubt, feel that 

 having once or twice recorded pretty 

 freely all tlieir doings at the collecting 

 ground, it is like twice slaying the 

 slain to go over it year after year. Yet 

 an intelligent observer could make 

 very interesting notes if he would, 

 though he collected on the same ground 

 year after year. One insect abounds 

 one year, and another, another. New 

 species crop up occasionally, some con- 

 tinuing to appear afterwards, others 

 never being taken again. The writer 

 has collected for more than twenty 

 years on one particular piece of ground, 

 and a season has rarely passed over in 

 which he did not meet with something 

 new. Even this year, bad as it is 

 said to have been, Nodua bella has 

 occurred at sugar, for the first time it 

 has been taken in the neighbourhootl. 

 In fact, we are under the iinprcfision 

 that carefully prepared notes from a 

 collector who stuck to one ground 

 year after year, wouhl prove of more 

 value in the end than the notes of the 

 most intellitreiit observer from a district 

 where he had never been before, it 



