150 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
tors of insects as pretty things, to whom, therefore, the term 
virtuoso was peculiarly applicable. But the mere collecting of 
insects is surely at least as good as any other manifestation of the 
cacoethes colligendi which is so general an affection of humanity, 
and which leads to the accumulation of books in good bindings, 
of coins and medals, old china, statues, and other works of art, 
by people who have no true appreciation of their value. Even 
the making of butterfly-pictures seems to be almost as intel- 
lectual an employment as the collecting of postage-stamps, 
which has been prosecuted with considerable zeal by a good 
many people in the present day. To this general ridicule we 
must, I think, add, in the case of entomology, that the practical 
collecting of insects for amusement was looked upon as a sort of 
sport, and therefore contemptible, because the game was so 
small ; just on the same principle that the quiet angler is 
looked down upon by those who love “ the noyse of houndys, 
the blastes of hornys, and the scrye of foulis, that hunters, 
fawkeners, and foulers make,” according to Dame Juliana 
Berners. Although the marked feeling here alluded to is 
happily extinct, its effects, no doubt, to some extent survive, 
and it may be due to them that professed zoologists at the 
present day unquestionably know less of insects than of any 
other class of animals. 
Nowadays it will hardly be formally denied that all branches 
of natural history are well worth studying ; and it is the object 
of the present article to show that entomology, however it may 
have been maligned in the past, presents certain advantages to 
the intending student which may well give it in many cases a 
preference over other departments of zoology. It has already 
been stated that entomological researches may be carried on all 
the year round, and it may be added that there is no locality in 
which they cannot be pursued — a matter of no small conse- 
quence to that great majority whose connections or avocations 
tie them down more or less to one spot. Even in the heart of 
large cities some representatives of most of the orders of insects 
may be met with ; and suburban gardens, if at all favourably 
placed, may furnish quite a large collection to those who work 
them systematically. The late Mr. James Francis Stephens 
used to relate that he had obtained over 2,000 species of insects 
in the little garden at the back of his house in Foxley Road, 
Kennington. Short excursions, which the custom of Saturday 
half-holidays renders particularly easy, will enable the entomolo- 
gist who is condemned to a town life to have many opportunities 
of adding to his stores both of specimens and of knowledge, 
whilst the resident in the country may find fresh objects of 
interest in whatever direction he turns. 
Further, the means of procuring these objects are very simple 
