THE SUBSTITUTE; 
Or, Entomological Exchange Facilitator, and 
Entomologist’s Fire-side Companion. 
No. 10.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1856. [Price 2d. 
SCIENTIFIC ENTOMOLOGY. 
I On another page of this day’s 
‘Substitute’ we print an extract 
from a letter of a “ labourer,” 
which has given us more pleasure 
than anything entomological we 
have read for a long time. It de- 
tails the method the writer used to 
I discover the name of an insect he 
had found, and the method was so 
logical and true that we hope a 
perusal of it may induce more col- 
lectors to follow it than now adopt 
it. We hope this for the sake of 
the collectors themselves, because 
it is a step in advance of their or- 
dinary position when they are able 
to take up an insect, and, by refer- 
ring to a book of descriptions, find 
I out what it is. A man who can 
do this is in advance of his fel- 
lows, not simply because he there- 
by knows some things of which 
I they are ignorant and careless, 
but because, by means of the edu- 
I cational process of training his 
imind undergoes before he can 
attain the facile exereise of its 
analytical and synthetical powers. 
he is in a position to ask for, and 
obtain, the why and because of the 
circumstances that operate upon 
him from all sides, and fashion his 
life and character. He may thus 
render himself, to a certain ex- 
tent, above circumstances, or at 
any rate make himself reconciled 
to what he sees is caused by the 
action of laws of Nature to which 
he must submit. The man who 
can trace out the family, genus 
and species, of a moth or any 
other insect, has obtained the 
“open Sesame” of the arcana of 
Nature’s secrets; be sees not 
merely the fact which he set out 
to seek, but the connection with 
others just beyond the circle of 
his observation, which continually 
widens, and its horizon grows 
clearer to his strengthened and 
enraptured vision. He cannot but 
be impressed with the idea that. 
Nature has a system of order and 
gradation, that all the forms and 
developments are planned and 
provided for as necessary parts of 
one great whole. At this condi- 
tion of intelligence surely a great 
proportion of our collectors ought 
to arrive; then, besides the benefits 
L 
