IRature IRotes : 
Zhc Selbovne Society’s flftagasinc. 
No. 82. 
OCTOBER, 1896. 
VoL. VII. 
A WORD OR TWO WITH INSECT-COLLECTORS. 
HE appearance of a new book''- especially addressed to 
“the young collector,” affords an opportunity for 
uttering a protest which has, perhaps, been too long 
delayed. The book itself does not require a lengthy 
notice ; it deals exclusively with the collecting, rearing and 
preservation of British butterflies and moths, which appears 
to be the author’s idea of entomology. The instructions — which 
are not very well written — are comprised in twelve chapters, 
according to the months of the year, and to each is added a list 
of some of the principal Lepidoptera to be looked for during the 
month. But although the reader is advised to make his own 
apparatus, and encouraged to rear and collect his own specimens 
in ways which will exercise his patience and ingenuity, we 
cannot but think that it is a pity to multiply books which 
encourage collecting. There has been a vast increase in the 
number of popular books on British butterflies and moths, most 
of which contain sufficient instructions on collecting ; and 
although we would encourage observers, it is quite time that 
the wholesale formation of collections should be discouraged as 
much as possible. Butterflies were still so plentiful in England 
thirty or forty years ago, that Stainton could say that most were 
only local, not really rare. Many species, then locally common, 
are now on the verge of extinction as British, owing to a variety 
of causes, among which we may enumerate high farming, the 
Wild Birds’ Protection Act, possibly, to some extent, unfavour- 
able climatic influences, and last, but not least, reckless and 
indiscriminate collecting. 
* Entomological Notes for the Young Collector. By William A. Motley, 
pp. X., 129. London : Elliot Stock. 
