THE ENTOMOLOGISTS 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
Xo. 256.] SATUEDAY, AUGUST 31, 1861. [Price Id. 
STljc ©ntomologist’s 
Sittelltg-cnwr 
WILL 
HOT BE COHTINVED 
APTER THE CLOSE OE 
THE PKESENT VOLUME. 
SCAECITY OF INSECTS. 
From all parts of the country, and 
from nearly all Europe, we have com- 
plaints of the scarcity of insects ; but 
one correspondent suggests that those 
who thus complain are themselves to 
blame. 
To us, however, the complaint ap- 
pears too general to be attributable to 
bad collecting, and certainly the scarcity 
of Hipparchia Janira can have nothing 
to do with good or bad collectors; 
that is a fact as patent and visible 
to all of us as the late comet on the 
30th of June. 
The cold and wet summer (or per- 
haps it would be better to say t(ie 
cold and wet season, as it seems almost 
a misnomer to call it summer) of I860 
is still exercising a prejudicial effect 
on vegetation and on insects. He who 
finds no peaches on a peach tree just 
now is not necessarily either lazy or 
stupid, and we see not why we may 
not be equally charitable to the un- 
fortunate collector who fails to meet 
with insects. 
It is possible that the autumn crop 
of insects may be more plentiful: the 
weather now is everything we could 
wish, but still fine weather may be of 
no avail if the whole summer genera- 
tion of a species has become extermi- 
nated, or even if an approach towards 
extermination had been reached. 
We have heard of the appearance 
of Colias Edusa in Devonshire, but 
we have as yet only heard of a single 
specimep. 
We are curious to hear whether the 
scarcity which is so generally com- 
plained of among Lepidoptera prevails 
also amongst other orders. The Hy- 
menoptera, for instance, are they scarce ? 
We speak feelingly, being much an- 
noyed with a superabundance of wasps 
— more so, indeed, than has been the 
case for many years. Also of flies 
there seems to be no scarcity. 
How do the collectors of Coleoptera 
z 
