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entomologists, who have heard it all before, and apparently have no 
higher wish than to hear it all again. With regard to work of a purely 
British character, but little has been done, and that largely connected 
with matters of detail—matters connected with life-histories, habits, 
variation, etc. Our British fauna has been so well worked that 
nothing striking is likely to be discovered. The material connected 
with our moths is now waiting for some one to arrange and classify in 
the light of our modern views of classification, that relating to the 
butterflies having been recently dealt with. The moths, being more 
comprehensive and complicated, may have to wait some time yet. 
One other thing has stirred the entomological world in Britain to 
its depths. This is the gradual extinction of rare British species by 
the pure collector—the man who collects with no other aims than to 
kill something and to make a collection worth so many pence or pounds. 
The condemnation of this individual has been general and sweeping. 
All our leading London and provincial societies are in arms against 
him. The Entomological Society of London has formed a strong 
central committee, serving upon which are the President, Ex-President, 
and Secretary of the Society, the Editors of The Naturalist, The 
Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, The Entomologist, and The Ento¬ 
mologist's Record, as well as several other influential naturalists. At 
least two provincial societies are inclined to exclude these amateur ex¬ 
terminators from membership, and the Central Council asks for detailed 
information respecting local species, and their exterminators, on which 
to act. When it is asserted that, in spite of the warnings as to Lycaena 
arion, some 1,500 specimens were captured by less than a dozen 
“ amateur entomologists ! ” in one restricted district; when it is asserted 
that another amateur entomologist has given a standing order to the 
professional collectors in the New Forest, to take all the Apatura iris 
(larvae, pupae and imagines) they can capture at so much per specimen, 
it appears high time that we made a stand to save our fauna from 
these murderous destroyers. I may say that the Earl of Darnley has 
put into the hands of the central committee the power of vetoing the 
pass granted to anyone to collect in Chattenden Woods who abuses his 
permission, and the hope of the renewal of a permit there for those 
collectors who go every year to exterminate Scoria dealbata, and a few 
other species, will, unless they exercise considerable discretion, be a 
distant one. 
So much for general matters. We may now turn to more genial 
work. 
THE PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECT OF ENTOMOLOGY. 
It is difficult to know exactly on what branch of their subject to 
address a body of specialists, when there are so many questions before 
them awaiting solution. Perhaps the consideration of the advance of 
our subject on its philosophical side is as satisfactory a text as any that 
can be mentioned, and, as this advance is so constant and so marked, 
it is always possible to refer to something which is comparatively new, 
even if one also repeats, in part, what has been said before. 
Probably the most marked feature of the year, in this respect, is 
the distinct public recognition which has been given to the philoso¬ 
phical branches of our science. Slowly and surely the pioneers of 
philosophical entomology have pushed their way through an over- 
