Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846: With Instructions for Collecting, Preparing, and Forwarding Objects of Natural History Written by The Professors Administrators of The Museum Of Natural History At Paris. And Instructions Relative to Anthropology and Zoology
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Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846: With Instructions for Collecting, Preparing, and Forwarding Objects of Natural History Written by The Professors Administrators of The Museum Of Natural History At Paris. And Instructions Relative to Anthropology and Zoology
Exchange of publications
_Articulated animals._--Articulated animals (viz. insects, spiders,
crustacees, etc.), compose the principal family of the animal kingdom;
collections made in distant countries include generally a considerable
proportion of new-varieties and the capture, preservation and
transport of these little beings offer no serious difficulties. We
recommend in a special manner to the attention of travellers
enthomological researches; undertaken with zeal and intelligence, even
by a person who is not a naturalist, they can not fail of being useful
to science and important for the museum. In this, as in the other
branches of zoology, it is not only the large and brilliant kinds
which are more valued by the naturalist; generally it is, on the
contrary, among the small insects or those of plain colors that the
more novel forms are found; for collectors have ordinarily neglected
them, and even in the best explored regions (in the environs of Paris,
for example) are discovered varieties which, till now, have escaped
attention. As for the manner of forming these collections and the
particular indications relative to the classes into which is divided
this vast division of the animal kingdom, and, consequently, we shall
give to each of these groups a separate article.
_Insects._--What we have said of articulated animals in general, is
particularly applicable to insects, whose number is immense, and whose
forms vary beyond all imagination. The kinds differ extremely from one
country to another, often even from one locality to another, and it is
rare to find perfect identity between insects which inhabit different
regions, though often, at the first glance, no difference can be
detected between them; besides, there is no point on the globe, where
the enthomologic Faun is completly known, and although our museum has
about eighty thousand kinds, our galleries do not include half that
are seen in looking through the different collections of Europe. It
results that, in all countries, travellers who occupy themselves with
enthomology, can render themselves useful to the museum, and, in
distant countries, they should not neglect collecting all the insects
they find, even when the kinds do not appear to differ in anything
from those found every day at home. There are some parts of the globe,
which, enthomologically, deserve to fix the attention of the
collecter, either by reason of their extraordinary richness or on
account of the small number of parcels yet sent to the museum. Such
are: the west part of Africa, from the gulf of Beninso the cape of
good Hope; the Birman Empire, Assan, and even the interior of India,
whence the English enthomologist receive so many remarkable varieties;
Borneo, the Phillipines and the neighbouring isles; the western and
northern part of Australia; the west coast of North America, from
Mexico to Behring's strait, and the great basins of the Amazon.
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