My first experience in the use of the microscope was gained by helping my brother William to prepare botanical specimens for examination under his microscope. I thus had useful practice early in life, 1849 (?), in the management of a good instrument. I bought my own about 1864, after my brother John’s death—one of Pillischer’s—a good working instrument with excellent 1-inch and ¼-inch lenses on a nose-piece. I first studied with it the hairs of different animals. I also worked preparations of teeth, showing the fluid contents when in a fresh state.
PLATE XVII. CHEPSTOW WITH THE ROAD BRIDGE OVER THE WYE (OPENED IN 1816), CHEPSTOW CASTLE ON THE RIVER-BANK, AND RISING GROUND BEHIND. _Frith photo._ ]
In the number of the “Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette” for August 1, 1868, the announcement was made that “Throughout the month of August there will be open in the Palace of Industry, in the Champs Élysées, Paris, an Exhibition which we conceive cannot fail to be of great service in extending a knowledge of the destructive or beneficial habits of various species of insects.... The Exhibition is organised by the ‘Société d’Insectologie Agricole’ under the Presidency of Dr. Boisduval, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Horticultural Society of Paris, and under the auspices of the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works. The object of this Society (and consequently of the Exhibition itself) is twofold: firstly, to investigate the economy and to extend the benefits resulting from insects serviceable to mankind; and secondly, to study the habits of those species which affect our gardens, orchards, farms or forests, in order to arrest their ravages or destroy them individually.”
Details were given at some length of the classes of subjects to be represented, in the hope that it might attract the attention of the Council of our own Horticultural Society to the desirability of arranging some similar exhibition, and, on the 22nd of August following, the public were informed (again in the “Gardeners’ Chronicle,” p. 893) that “the desideratum lately pointed out as falling within the province of the Royal Horticultural Society to supply, viz., a Collection of Insects (and their products), is now in a fair way to be made good.” A short sketch was given of the plan on which it was proposed to deal with the subject, in which the “insect friends” of the horticulturist were the division to be placed first. Following these were to be “gardeners’ enemies,” and the plants on which they feed; next to these again, “insects beneficial or injurious to man.” Negotiations on the part of the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society with the Science and Art Department resulted in the agreement that, if the Society would form the Collection, the Department would house, care for, and display it. The eminently qualified Fellows of the Society, Mr. Wilson Saunders, Mr. Andrew Murray (pp. 75 and 87), and Mr. M. J. Berkeley, agreed to lend their best assistance in the matter, and Mr. Murray, at the request of the Council, undertook the most laborious part of the task—that of receiving, arranging, and putting in order the various specimens that might be sent from time to time. All collectors and observers who might be willing to help were requested to communicate with Mr. Murray, and without delay I availed myself of the opportunity, in pleasant anticipation of the entomological co-operation giving a use to what had been previously somewhat desultory observation.