THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
151 
AMATEUR DEALERS. 
To the Editor of the * Intelligencer** 
Sir, — Mr. Hawley has indeed done 
us all good service, by exposing those 
who destroy the food-plant of an insect 
to prevent other people obtaining the 
species (Intel, p. 143). In this way 
Botys terrealis was all but exterminated 
by an amateur dealer at Llanferros, in 
North Wales. Since amateur dealing 
has become fashionable, both by clerical 
and lay dealers, it is next to impossible 
to obtain a species, once it gets in their 
hands, without submitting to tbeir terms 
of exchange; the only way is to wait 
until they have sold them to the regular 
dealers; in this way I obtained my set 
of Cucullina, Sec. 
But there is another system of exter- 
mination going on, equally certain, if 
not quite so speedy, which is vyell illus- 
trated at p. 7528 of the ‘ Zoologist,’ where 
Mr. Birchall, professing to give us the 
history of Nyssia Zonaria, tells us how 
very circumscribed are its known lo- 
calities; yet on visiting one of these 
localities a few days after my notice of 
its appearance in the ‘ Intelligencer,’ 
last March, I found more than thirty 
children collecting Nyssia Zonaria for 
Mr. Birchall, at one penny per dozen 
for males; on this, so termed, “little 
hollow,” the pill-boxes he gave them to 
fill being already full to overflowing, 
they had got any kind of vessel they 
could find to put them in, one young 
urchin offering to sell me thirty-five 
dozen, which he held up in a pickle 
bottle, if I would give “ Th’ same price 
as th’ mon e’ specteckells tow’d ’em he’d 
give for o’ they cud fend.” I told him 
he must keep them for his employer. 
Here there is a system under which 
the most prolific species must become 
exterminated, and though such a system 
may and does produce great boxes of 
duplicates to sell to regular dealers (I 
call it “ sell,” amateurs call it “ ex- 
change ”), still it is so at variance with 
mynotions of an entomological sports- 
man that I think the system cannot be too 
emphatically denounced, and its followers 
treated as poachers. 
Trusting that others may avoid such 
a reprehensible system, when they see 
how much it is at variance with that 
noble spirit the naturalist always in- 
herits, and feeling quite sure the regular 
genuine dealer who understands his busi- 
ness will never kill the goose that lays 
him so many golden eggs, — having, then, 
only that hybrid “amateur dealer” to 
fear, let us refuse to show him how and 
where to take local species, and our pets 
are safe to us for many a year after the 
amateur dealer has ceased to be ; for I 
never knew an amateur dealer worth a 
rush at finding anything out for him- 
self. 
Yours, Sec., 
C. S. Gregson. 
Stanley, Aug. 2. 
Price 3s., 
P RACTICAL HINTS 
respecting MOTHS and BUT- 
TERFLIES, with Notices of their Lo- 
calities ; forming a Calendar of Entomo- 
logical Operations throughout the Year 
in pursuit of Lepidoptera. By Richaed 
Shield. 
London: John Van Voorst, 1, Pater- 
noster Row. 
