THE 
WEEKLY 
ENTOMOLOGIST. 
“ ENTOMA QUIDQUID AGUNT NOSTRI EST FARRAGO LIBERIA.” 
No. 8. — Yol. 2.] SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 1863. [Price 2 d . 
ENTOMOLOGICAL BOTANY. 
By Peter Inchbald Esq. 
the commencement of another 
Spring, we would press upon 
our readers the absolute neces- 
sity of a knowledge of Botany, in 
reference to their Entomological 
•studies. Many a discovery has been 
comparatively valueless from the 
discoverer’s ignorance of the Elora of 
his own immediate neighbourhood. 
Yegetation, indeed, is often so inti- 
mately bound up with the earlier 
•stages of insect-life, that it is sur- 
prising that it should not have been 
more diligently studied. Four or 
five hundred of the 1444 flowering 
■ plants that occur on the British Isles, 
ire all that a neighbourhood can sup- 
fly ; — surely it would be no difficult 
• ;ask for the Entomologist in his 
r ’ambles, with ‘ Child’s Field Botany ’ 
n his hand, which he can procure 
from Longman at the cost of two 
hillings and six pence, to make out 
md classify the various wild flowers 
le may meet with, rendered, many of 
hem, interesting, ashaving furnished 
ood and shelter to some rarities that 
le may have stored within his cabi- 
ict. The chief difficulty is in the 
outset. Let him but closely study 
one type of a class, — note its leading 
features, and he will soon recognise the 
relationships that exist in families, 
and learn to distinguish one family 
from another : and when this is ac- 
complished, the rest will surely fol- 
low. Genera and species, where they 
exist, will be discriminated by an eye 
already tutored to grapple with the 
greater difficulties of generic and 
specific distinctions among his favor- 
ites in the insect-world. Let a collector 
go forth into the woods and fields with 
such information at his command, 
and he will find how great is his ad- 
vantage over a brother-collector, who 
is ignorant of the varied vegetation 
around him, even so far as simply 
collecting : .but when he comes to 
charter and record his observations 
for the benefit of others, as well as 
himself, to describe the food-plant of 
some phytophagous larva, — then, 
indeed, will the link of association 
that binds the two sciences together 
be a strong one, and he will wonder 
that Botany has so long been neglect- 
ed by him. 
Mr. Stainton, in the spirit of a 
true friend to science, as he has al- 
ways shown himself, has already 
