THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 24.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1856. [Price 1 d. 
WHO BIDS FOR THE BUGS? 
In a little work which emanated from 
the press this summer there occurred the 
following sentence: — “Surely in this 
year 1 856 it is quite time that some one 
should devote his energies and attention 
to our British hugs.” Few reviewers 
have failed to quote this sentence, and it 
has thus had a much more widely-spread 
circulation than it had anticipated ; hut 
still it does not appear to have met the 
eye of “ the coming man,” and we are 
therefore compelled to put the enquiry, 
“ Who bids for the hugs?” 
Mr. Dallas is a forsworn wretch, and 
has forsaken his first love. Who will 
take compassion on the distressed damsel 
Hemiptera P 
“ The numerous, active, and often 
gaily-coloured field-bugs, are continually 
met with, and there is probably not an 
entomologist in the country who, in the 
month of J une, does not daily turn them 
out of his net by the score. But who 
pays attention to them ?” 
We await an answer from our readers. 
An enquiry was made through our 
columns some time ago for an individual 
who would receive Dipterous larvae, and 
at once a gentle man came forward willing 
to be pelted through the post with mag- 
gots. 
We trust the present enquiry will not 
prove less effectual in securing a verita- 
ble bug-hunter : for be it known that a 
large mass of our readers who are com- 
monly termed bug-hunters, are appa- 
rently so called because they don’t hunt 
bugs “ Lucus a non lucendo,” just as 
many insects are named after plants on 
which they don’t feed, as though to 
puzzle those who go in to their entomo- 
logical examinations. 
The bugs in their flight are often diffi- 
cult to distinguish from small moths ; 
and some one who finds he has not a 
talent for setting out moths might wisely 
turn his attention to the more easily pre- 
served order. Many of them are met 
with by the Micro-Lepidopterist who 
seeks in a rolled leaf, or in a mine, 
for some favourite larvae, 
“But when he gets there 
The cupboard is bare,” 
for a field-bug has been there before him, 
and perhaps the gluttonous beast still 
remains ensconced in the habitation of 
the victim it has slain. 
Do particular bugs eat particular spe- 
cies of caterpillars? if so the sight of 
such Hemipterous insects might as 
plainly indicate the occurrence of certain 
Lepidoptera as could be done by some of 
the Hymenoptera, of which order more 
are probably reared in a season by Lepi- 
dopterists than by professed Hymenop- 
terists. 
n n 
