THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
31 
Label ancl Exchange Lists. — I have 
still a number left of the List of British 
Lepidoptera for labelling, printed on fine 
paper (20 leaves, 8vo.), as described in 
‘The Substitute’ at page 7. I shall be 
happy to send a copy, post free, on re- 
ceipt of 12 stamps. I have plenty of 
Exchange Lists of British Lepidoptera, 
which I can send to any collector, post 
free, at a shilling a dozen. — T. Chap- 
man, Bothwell Street, Glasgow. 
A Junior Entomological Society . — I 
would be much obliged if you would iu- 
sert this, in answer to the letter of C. G. 
W. in the ‘ Intelligencer’ for April 11th. 
It is my opinion that it would be de- 
cidedly agreeable to many parties if such 
a society as you propose could be formed ; 
I, for one, would be most happy to join 
it, and I think I can answer for three 
friends who would also be delighted to 
become members. I, and a friend of 
mine, made the attempt a short time ago 
to get up a private society, but we failed 
in our object for want of members. I am, 
therefore, very glad that this thought has 
been made public, as I am almost certain 
that with a little perseverance, what is 
now, as Mr. Stainton calls it, an idea, 
will soon become a reality, and then I am 
sure that we will all be much obliged to 
the author of that idea. — Hardinge W. 
Bhowne, 1, Weslhourne Street, Hyde 
Park Gardens ; April 14, 1857. 
COLEOPTERA. 
The Coleopterist may begin now to 
“ prick his ears” with delight, for we are 
no longer on the chilly confines of spring, 
but find ourselves all at once launched 
fairly into it “for better for worse,” and 
must make the most of our coming op- 
portunities. Unfortunately, as a body, 
entomologists are not the inheritors of 
much superfluous leisure, and cannot, 
therefore, command sufficient time for 
more than occasional desultory collecting 
in places near at home : yet some few of 
our readers, we believe, are more blest in 
this respect than the rest, and it is to 
this happy band — this much-to-be-envied 
minority — that the following observations 
are more particularly addressed. 
Those who make beetle-hunting the 
great business of their life (and who does 
not, who can ?) should consider it a mat- 
ter of duty to devote a portion of every 
season to travelling, in order that distant 
(and comparatively unexplored) spots 
may be examined, and that so our know- 
ledge of the topographical distribution of 
species may be gradually matured. 
True, it is, that it may often appear a 
sacrifice to do so, both as regards time 
and expense, for the district in which we 
live may, like the vicinity of London, be 
more prolific than any other within our 
reach, so that we may feel but ill in- 
clined to leave a good locality for a bad 
one ; but in point of fact this is more 
apparent than real, and such a supposi- 
tion could never, in reality, be enter- 
tained, except through a wrong appre- 
ciation of the duties of a naturalist, 
whose province it is, not only to amass 
specimens, but to observe facts. Even 
negative evidence, indeed, inferior as it 
must necessarily be to positive, is ex- 
tremely important, as every year is most 
surely demonstrating; and if some of our 
greedy, mercenary, insatiable, avaricious 
collectors, who expect a quid pro quo for 
every hour that they are out, and calcu- 
late with exquisite nicety the exchange- 
able value of every unfortunate victim 
which is thrust into their bottles, would 
only be content to settle themselves 
quietly down for awhile in the neighbour- 
bourhood (perchance) of some “barren 
moorlands,” or bleak upland height, and 
there to study Nature in all her phases, 
determined not to leave it until they had 
gained some definite, general idea, of the 
denizens of the soil, and ivould be satis- 
fied with this information (as feeling that 
