THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 90.] 
PERSEVERANCE, 
It may seem almost superfluous to say 
anything to impress the necessity for 
perseverance on entomologists, because 
that quality becomes, as it were, a 
law of their being, and many who 
have ceased to persevere have ceased 
to entomologise. 
All sportsmen expect to be more 
successful than they are, — hence all 
sportsmen return home disappointed. 
Who is there that has not gone out 
for a day’s collecting in the middle 
of summer, dreaming of rare Pro- 
minents, choice Noctuse and unique 
Geometrse ? and even if one or two 
of the scarcer species may have been 
met with, yet how different — how 
very different — the reality from the 
dream, — 
“ I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,” 
and the dreams of entomologists are 
frequently quite as exaggerated. 
But such dreams are not without 
their uses, — they encourage hope and 
stimulate to exertion ; and if, in the 
reaction, there is experienced a de- 
pressing sensation of disappointment, 
yet the hopes did afford real pleasure 
[Price 1 d . 
and encouragement, and the grave 
Mentor who should say to a party of 
incipients, that their expectations were 
groundless, that they would get nothing 
worth going for, and would probably 
return home, late in the day, weary 
and footsore, with only a few of the 
commonest species, would act a cynical 
part, and we hope would get well 
laughed at for his gloomy forebodings. 
Time enough to decide that the day’s 
sport is good for nothing, when the 
day is ended ; to resolve beforehand 
that it will be good for nothing is 
almost enough to ensure that it shall 
be 
“ Weary, stale, flat and unprofitable." 
When looking over your sugared 
trees have you never said, “ Well, I 
will look over them just once more, 
and then I will go in?” and perhaps 
on looking this “ once more ’’ you 
have found some prize, which has 
encouraged you to keep on trying for 
full another half hour! 
Many persons relax their efforts just 
when success is certain, would they 
but persevere: every time you tumble 
down jump up again more lively than 
before, and a fall will then do you no 
harm. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1858. 
N 
