YOUNG ENTOMOLOGISTS. 
7 
obscure passage in Xenophon or Thucydides, may later in 
life be of use in enabling an Entomologist to unravel 
some obscure description; indeed the classical student soon 
gets to learn that to ascertain an author’s meaning, the only 
way is to familiarise yourself perfectly with all the author’s 
modes of expression. Individuals rarely use the same com¬ 
bination of words to express exactly the same ideas, and an 
author’s meaning is best elicited by a reference, not to a 
dictionary, but to himself. 
An Entomologist soon finds that the field before him is 
so vast , that even if, as is now generally the case, he confine 
himself to one order of insects, for him to catch a sufficient 
quantity of each species to supply even his limited circle of 
young entomological acquaintance is no pursuit for an 
idler; indeed he cannot long have pursued this branch of 
Natural History without noticing that if, as the late Dr. 
Arnold remarked, an early separation is observed at school 
between the idlers and the workers of the community, that 
lie has already taken his election among the latter class. 
Want of useful employment for their time is the great 
bane of the mass of mankind — <( for Satan finds some mis¬ 
chief still for idle hands to do”—anyone who can earlv 
initiate the young to some attractive amusement, which shall 
at the same time afford them useful employment, becomes a 
benefactor to his race. Now, of all branches of study, En¬ 
tomology is perhaps the most attractive to the young : one 
gn at advantage is, that it is a pursuit which combines the 
healthful exercise of the sportsman with no small amount of 
head work at home; and with this advantage over any pur¬ 
suits in which the out-door exercise and in-door study are 
totj y disconnected, because here each reacts upon the other, 
t ie < ntomologist carefully examines a specimen under the 
microscope to ascertain to what group it should belong, and 
llng 18 next walk he takes pains to observe the habits 
