It was a solitary--rather bilious-looking--stamp that first obsessed me, a good many years ago now. It was the 3 cents Sarawak, 1869, printed in brown on yellow paper, which was in the collection of my schooldays, and I had always wanted to make it the nucleus of a special collection. But, before the opportunity came for realising this ambition, a different interest had arisen in that adventure-story republic of Hayti, which led me first to try to specialise its stamps, which having done, after my notions of specialising at that period, the next start was made with my early friend the peculiar yellow-brown label which a Scottish firm lithographed for the Rajah of Sarawak. I suppose the spice of adventure suggested by both Hayti and Sarawak, and subsequently China and Abyssinia, was responsible for turning one's specialistic tendencies into definite channels. But whatever the influence may be with some, the question is so constantly being put that it may be useful to outline some skeleton plans, which are all capable of providing good scope for the exercise of philatelic talent. The close study of detail, and particularly the increasing interest taken by collectors in the manner of production, has led some students to devote themselves to the stamps produced by a particular firm of manufacturers. The finest collection on these lines would be that dealing with the stamps produced by Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co. during the period of, say, 1840-80. This would include the low-value English stamps of the line-engraved series, the early imperforate and perforated Ceylons, which in themselves afford ample scope for a big collection, those old favourites the triangular Capes, the majority of the stamps of the West Indian Islands, a few from Mauritius and Natal, the most interesting of the issues for New Zealand, and several of the Australian States, some of our North American possessions, with many others, not forgetting Chili's early issues. The stamps in such a collection would all be line-engraved. Messrs. De La Rue & Co., the greatest stamp-printers in the world, would also provide an interesting sphere for special study, embracing line-engraved stamps from the old Perkins-Bacon plates, printed in a superb series of pigments, distinctive from those of the earlier printers, and also the long range of surface-printed stamps for which this firm has been noted. There are other printers whose work could be dealt with by the collector in a like manner, and the would-be specialist on these lines has an opportunity of choosing a very small field or a very large one, the two I have expressly mentioned being capable of treatment on a very large scale indeed.