THE SUBSTITUTE; 
Or, Entomological Exchange Facilitator, and 
Entomologist’s Fire-side Companion. 
.'No. 11.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1857. [Price 2d. 
THE NEGLECTED ORDERS. 
ITo judge by the literature of En- 
ttomology in England, so much 
:does the writing about Lepidop- 
\tiera exceed that about all the other 
|(Orders, one would think that nearly 
j,iall insects were Lepidopterous. 
WVe need not say that this is not 
ithe fact ; but the collecting of Le- 
ipidoptera was first generally taken 
iiup, and has become fashionable, 
tto the exclusion of nearly all the 
other Orders. Like other fashion- 
able things there is much more 
'show than reality ; more of making 
.collections than scientific study. 
IBut we might as soon think to 
fchange the fashion of ladies bon- 
loets, by writing against it, as to 
iimake collectors of Lepidoptera 
linto entomologists by writing 
.lat them : all we would ask of 
tthem is to believe they are not 
'Supreme. Coleopterists are of 
ifnore modest pretensions, yet, if 
-generally more scientific men, are 
sstill far from knowing what they 
:might about the natural history of 
^beetles: they think more about 
^■getting a species than knowing it. 
except in its perfect state. As to 
the rest of the Orders, are there a 
dozen men in the kingdom who 
know anything about them beyond 
the merest generalities ? It can- 
not be that they are intrinsically 
devoid of interest, for they are all 
beautiful, and their economy is 
quite as wonderful as anything in 
the favoured Orders. The reason 
why all but the Lepidoptera and 
Coleoptera are so much neglected, 
we believe to be that there are no 
good English descriptions, or no 
descriptions at all of the species 
to be had. The collector of 
them, if he would learn their 
names, must wade through a heap 
of continental books ; and as this 
is not possible for the many, and 
too much labour for the few, it is 
not done at all. It is true we now 
have Mr. Walker’s three volumes 
of Descriptions of British Diptera, 
but we fear the Diptera are too 
numerous to become pojuilar, and 
these books too expensive to aid 
in making them so. Mr. Smith’s 
Catalogue of the British Bees is 
so good that it ought to set some 
of us upon the study of these Hy- 
menoptera. But for the rest all 
iw 
