How many of you go on “collecting trips”? The expression has ben a part of the entomological lexicon for a very long time, and I have been using it since grade school, when I began collecting insects. I suspect, though, that I called such events “going bug catching” before I clued in to the fact that “collecting trip” was the preferred phrase. Over the years, however, I have noticed fewer and fewer people saying “collecting trip,” to the point where it has started to catch my attention each time I hear it. After all, there is something a bit dated about the expression, but it is not immediately apparent to me where the anachronism lies. Perhaps it deserves a closer look. Of course, collecting trips are, quite literally, trips on which one collects something, which, for entomologists, usually means insect specimens. Collecting trips are specimen acquisition trips. Most of the time, these specimens come back freshly killed, but I doubt that anyone chooses a different term for the outing when the objective is to “bring ‘em back alive” (another anachronistic phrase, associated with large animal collector Frank Buck, who used it as his personal signature line, back in the 1930s). In fact, I have been on many collecting trips during which not a single specimen was collected, and I have noticed that for some entomologists, “collecting trip” is more or less synonymous with “going outside.” I suspect that for many entomologists whose work takes place in a lab or a greenhouse, the only time they had to go outside to do entomology was the time they made a collection …