80 Descriptions of new Ceylon Coleoptera. [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 desists 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, thathehas 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 highly 

 desirable iox the sake of the promulgation of sound information that 

 he should do so, that he should avail himself of this, his principal 



