It has usually been assumed that the collecting of surface material from the rich sites of Western Asia brought a harvest of knowledge at the expense of little archaeological skill; that while excavation, potentially destructive of evidence, required strict control, surface collecting was so harmless that it might be pursued indiscriminately. Recent survey work in Baluchistan has convinced the writer of the dangers of this view. This note is offered as a preliminary consideration of the problems involved in surface collecting, and the writer will be grateful for further suggestions from others more experienced than himself.