Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/404

388 of Western fields for moth-catching. Their cabinets soon presented new "beauties," vying with Indian and Brazilian species in varied colors and far surpassing them in general interest.

I said that "all sorts and conditions of men" were among those interested in forming collections of moths, and it may be inferred that there are queer specimens among the owners of the cabinets as well as in the drawers of the cabinets themselves. Moth-catching is a hobby, and, like other hobbies, it depends upon how it is ridden to pronounce upon its value from a social or scientific point of view. Some collectors amass their material from an apparent simple satisfaction in possessing rare or odd specimens. They have no appreciation of the bearing which the subject has upon general science, and no higher artistic interest in their possessions than the one that they have something no one else has got, and which it is difficult to obtain. A sort of purposeless mania seems to fall upon many of them, and they might as well get together a lot of old bottles or stones as moths. They deceive each other as to the locality for their rarities. I have even heard of one rabid collector, now happily deceased, who destroyed every specimen he had or could buy up of a certain rare exotic species, except one pair in his own collection, so that he could say he was the only one who had it! Another openly stated in an advertisement that he "coveted" certain specimens, which he offered to buy; thus, probably unintentionally, using a word which expressed his condition exactly, and in this way succeeding in breaking a commandment and exposing his state of mind at the same time.

While the "brethren of the net," as the moth-catchers are fond of styling themselves, are, generally speaking, a friendly and useful class, they necessarily include many who follow the occupation, but are yet not truly of them. From such the gentler student will soon turn away, sometimes not detecting them until he has suffered in purse and cabinet. Like other "confidence operators," they generally take in uninformed and young collectors, whose rarities are speedily transferred out of their keeping by the false statements and industrious letter-writing of these moth-poachers. They are the dark side of a picture which would be otherwise too bright and happy.

Among the figures of moth-catchers which have crossed my own path, I finally recall that of a kindly old gentleman, now no more, who for many years was a visitor to my humble study. His beardless, wrinkled face, framed in gray hair, had ever such a good and serene expression as betokened a mind which had caught its serenity from the countenance of Nature herself. I visited him in turn and not unfrequently, and I remember on one particular occasion that he showed me a new capture which he had made on Long Island, a new butterfly, not then described in the books. As he took it from the box and placed it on the table before him, pinned, dried, and set, in all its beauty, a little dog, which was his pet and companion, sprang at his