THE EMTOMOLOGrST^S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 259.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1861. [Peicb Id. 
©ntomolo gist’s WUt^lid 
Ittttlligtnctr 
WILL 
NOT BE CONTIKTIJED 
AFTER THE CLOSE OF 
THE PRESENT VOLUME. 
WOLVES. 
Wolves are no longer found in Eng- 
land: some thousand years or so ago 
they were not uncommon ; but they 
were pursued so incessantly, and were 
so relentlessly slaughtered, that in time 
the last English wolf gave up the 
ghost, and now if we want to see a 
live wolf we must go to the Zoological 
Gardens. 
We lately heard that insects are 
much commoner in Ireland than here. 
Entomologists westward of St. George’s 
Channel are scarce, and hence insects, 
being less pursued and less persecuted, 
have opportunities which they have not 
here of “ increasing and multiplying.” 
We know that the Dodo has become 
extinct by the agency of man ; it is 
feared that the Apteryx will soon share 
a similar fate, and it is historically 
known that wolves have been exter- 
minated on British ground; it would 
now seem that some similar catastrophe 
is impending over our insects. 
It may be urged that wolves are 
so much larger than insects, and their 
destruction was of so much greater 
importance to man, that no argument 
based on the fact of wolves having 
been exterminated would be at all 
applicable to insects; but what do we 
find? The slaughter of birds — whole- 
sale and indiscriminate slaughter — is 
telling upon their numbers (witness 
the recent numerous letters in the 
‘Times’), and the slaughter of every 
individual specimen of a rare insect 
that is met with {Cerura bicuspis, to 
wit) must tend to scarcify (if we may 
coin the word) that species, and 
eventually will effect its extermina- 
tion. 
When it is too late regrets will be 
numerous and loud, but they will then 
be unavailing. We were lately asked 
why should not horticulturists culti- 
vate insects as they do flowers. A 
score or two of Vanessa lo and UrtiecB 
would add to the beauty of a bed of 
China asters. Why not cultivate these 
handsome Rhopalocera ? 
2 c 
