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case, seems to be merely an erstwhile mapmaker, now well on his way to madness. It’s just a phase.
    Put a boy ashore on an islet and watch what happens. He’ll charge around it. Every time. He bounds from stone to stone along the edge of the water like a happy animal, living proof that the word “territorial” derives from the same root as “terrier.” He’s exploring his territory, following the coastline along its entire length like a cartographer, searching for driftwood and flotsam. Only then does he explore the interior of the island with the buttonologist’s blessed tunnel vision.

    Purple loosestrife sways in the light sea breeze. The heavy smell of seaweed. Arctic terns!
    …
    There are millions and millions of insect species here on earth. Of these, hundreds of thousands belong to the multifarious order of flies, Diptera . Houseflies, dance flies, robber flies, hoverflies, thick-headed flies, soldier flies, snipe flies, picture-winged flies, fruit flies, flesh flies, blowflies, stable flies, marsh flies, shore flies, louse flies, dung flies, parasite flies, stiletto flies—every imaginable name. In Sweden alone there are 4,424 different species, according to the most recent figures. New ones are discovered constantly.
    Of all these very different fly families, I am interested only in hoverflies, also called flower flies. But even these are far too numerous to cover in the course of one lifetime, except superficially. Scientists have identified more than 5,000 hoverflies in the whole world, and there are undoubtedly thousands more that haven’t yet been discovered or named, that simply exist God knows where. The 368 species of hoverfly found in Sweden to date are undeniably manageable. But our country is very large and verdant, and the days are so packed with impressions and clamourous information that I am forced to limit myself so as not to lose sight of something I am forever seeking.

    Therefore I collect only on the island. Never on the mainland.
    So far I have managed to capture 202 species. Two hundred and two.
    A triumph, believe me. Only the difficulty of explaining is greater.
    Not even on Öland or Gotland—those comparatively gigantic islands, where generations of entomologists have been capturing flies for all they’re worth since the time of Linnaeus—not even there, over the course of a quarter of a millennium, have they managed to identify as many species as I have over the course of seven years here. The number says something about the island, and perhaps something about the depth of the buttonological pitfall, but most of all it says something about the possibilities of the sedentary life. When I get old, maybe I will pursue my hoverfly studies only in my own garden, sitting here in the sunshine by the meadowsweet and the butterfly bush like a caliph in his pleasure garden, the pooter hose in my mouth as if it led to an opium pipe.

    Don’t misunderstand me. We’re talking about hunting for pleasure, nothing more. Of course I could name a number of very good, very sensible reasons why a person ought to collect flies. Scientific reasons, or environmental ones. And maybe I will, later, but it would be hypocritical to begin anywhere but with pure recreation. Anyway, I’m no missionary. Few collectors are. If anything, it’s probably solitude that gets us to make up reasons that other people can understand. If I say that I collect hoverflies principally to map out changes in the local fauna, practically everyone will understand, even applaud, what I do. But it’s a lie. Because enjoyment is so awkward. People who have not fallen into the trap themselves know nothing. On this point I am in agreement with Thomas De Quincey, who in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater dismisses all who believe they know something about the effects of intoxication on a restless soul.

[With regard to] all that has been hitherto written on the subject of opium, whether by travellers in Turkey (who may