My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

128 MY LIFEprepared to take an interest in any other departmentHe asked me to see his collection, and Iof nature.was amazed to find the great number and variety ofbeetles, their many strange forms and often beautifulmarkings or colouring, and was even more surprisedwhen I found that almost all I saw had been collectedaround Leicester, and that there were still many moreto be discovered. If I had been asked before howmany different kinds of beetles were to be found inany small district near a town, I should probablyhave guessed fifty or at the outside a hundred, andthought that a very liberal allowance. But I nowlearnt that many hundreds could easily be collected,and that there were probably a thousand differentkinds within ten miles of the town ; and he showed mea thick volume containing descriptions of more thanthree thousand species inhabiting the British Isles.Ialso learnt from him in what an infinite variety ofplaces beetles may be found, while some may becollected all the year round, so I at once determinedto begin collecting, as I did not find a great manynew plants near Leicester. I therefore obtained acollecting bottle, pins, and a store-box ;and in orderto learn their names and classification I obtained,at wholesale price through Mr. Hill's bookseller,Stephen's " Manual of British Coleoptera," whichhenceforth for some years gave me almost as muchpleasureas Lindley's " Botany," with my MSS. descriptions,had already done.This new pursuit gave a fresh interest to myWednesday and Saturday afternoon walks into thecountry, when two or three of the boys often accompaniedme. The most delightful of all our walks wasto Bradgate Park, about five miles from the town, awild, neglected park with the ruins of a mansion, and