168 



The Naturalist. 



This character, then, of recorded investigation is perhaps the highest 

 in which we can regard our favourite study. But yet we should insist 

 on the value of entomology even if its facts died with their discoverer. 

 The world is made up of individuals, and an increase of good to any 

 one individual must therefore be a gain to the world at large. And 

 will anyone say that the simple acquisition of knowledge is without 

 advantage to any mind, even if it should lead no further ? There is, 

 in truth, a very pure delight in the simple discovery of a fact new to 

 ourselves, even if that fact has been known for ages to others, and 

 there are few studies calculated to put one in possession of more 

 interesting facts than that of entomology. To trace out for ones-self 

 the life history of an insect by laborious research, and to watch it 

 through all its varied and multiform transformations, are pursuits of 

 engrossing interest, and cannot be without their good effects on the 

 human mind, even if the knowledge thereby gained go no further 

 than the gainer himself, particularly if the secrets of insect anatomy 

 be made an object of study, the wonderful adaptation of structure to 

 function, and modification of special organs for special purposes — 

 these must teach a man, far more eloquently than any book, that there 

 is in nature a plan and a fixity of purpose, and that the smallest atoms 

 of creation are constructed as perfect in mechanism, and as exact in 

 detail, as those objects which are generally considered as the highest 

 efforts of creative power. 



But it may be said, " Thus far we agree with you wholly. You 

 have, as yet, only considered entomology as a searching into and 

 discovering of the facts relating to a special part of the natural 

 creation ; but if such be the case, where the need of those vast collec- 

 tions of insects which it is our pride and delight to capture and 

 preserve ?" We see here a desire for the acquisition of specimens far 

 more strong than a desire for the acquisition of knowledge. I am 

 afraid there is sometimes ground for such an insinuation, and, without 

 disparaging the value of collecting, we must be careful that our motive 

 for making these collections is not the mere love of hoarding up 

 specimens — the amor habendi of the collector of postage stamps, coins, 

 autographs, old and ugly china, or all the untold curiosities that people 

 do collect. It may be true that the entomologist must needs also be 

 a collector, but it is also most abundantly certain that there is no 

 necessity for the collector to be an entomologist. 



(To he continued.) 



