Page:Practical hints respecting moths and butterflies, with notices of their localities - forming a calendar of entomological operations throughout the year, in pursuit of Lepidoptera (IA practicalhintsre00shie).pdf/8

2 position with the present, that we may be guided in our conduct now, and its probable effects on the future, by the experience of what has been.

Welcome, new year! A new year, a new hope; new hopes, new fears, new aspirations, new duties: may we use thy moments as a precious trust: if we lose or abuse thee, we are made to suffer for our negligence; “let us work, therefore, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work;” we must put forth all our energies, in order to obtain success in whatever pursuit we are engaged, and in nothing is this more true than in regard to entomological science, which is essentially a science of observation. The entomological tyro must not content himself by listlessly walking beside a hedgerow, or threading the mazes of a wood, capturing and observing only such insects as force themselves upon his observation, but he must diligently hunt for them, search them out, explore every crevice and crack in search of the perfect insects, and carefully scrutinize every tree, plant and herb that he comes across, in order to discover the larvæ or evidences of their operations: these will show themselves to the observant and industrious collector in every possible form, mining in blotches and galleries in the leaves, puckering, twisting and folding them in every conceivable manner, agglutinating the young shoots of plants, and mining beneath the bark of trees; feeding in a variety of ways upon every species of vegetable matter, from the lordly oak of the forest down to the humble lichen upon an old paling.

In order, therefore, to assist the tyro in his observations, I have endeavoured the following pages,