The Bournemouth Natural History Society is the heir to the Victorian tradition of collecting from the field. Whilst many a nineteenth century dilettante regarded Nature as bountiful and collected plants and butterflies like postage stamps, our predecessors and our early members, in the absence of adequate textbooks and good photography, needed actual specimens preserved for study. Indeed, collecting has been the foundation of our knowledge of the natural world, and 'Type' specimens preserved and described will always remain the baseline of future study.

During the course of the 20th century there came a realisation that mankind was decimating many species and there is now a reluctance to collect from the field. Museum collections of serried ranks of stuffed animals have become unfashionable and many displays have been removed. Members of the BNSS subscribe whole-heartily with the need to preserve wildlife; we have not added to our natural collections for many decades. However, with the damage having been done in the past, we feel duty-bound to preserve those collections we have obtained.