260 CHARM OF COLOUE. 



pillars, and if we had, repeated descriptions would only serve 

 to weary more than to inform. The eye at a glance takes in, 

 in these matters, more knowledge than a page of descriptive 

 matter can be made to convey. Suffice it that almost every 

 caterpillar is rendered, by colour only, an object pleasing, or, 

 to some people, endurable to look on; and in truth these 

 creeping things would be but loathly ones if stripped of their 

 investiture of light. In proof, we have only to dislodge from 

 their dark retreats some of the whitish wood-borers of the 

 same tribe, and, however little fastidious, we shall confess 

 their unsightliness by an involuntary gesture of aversion. 

 There is little correspondence in colour observable betwixt 

 caterpillars and the same insects in their moth or butterfly 

 maturity, the magpie or currant moth* forming one of the few 

 exceptions to this general rule. 



In many cases, also, the most sober- suited moths, as the 

 brown " Lacquey ' and the fully "Puss," spring from the 

 gayest caterpillars. The Sphinxes and the "Emperor' are, 

 however, handsome moths come of handsome larvae. 



There are few specimens of the flower-like or water-colour 

 painting, if we may so call it, which we are now reviewing, 

 that display more vivid tints, or more elegantly-pencilled 

 patterns, than are sometimes to be found on the bodies of 

 spiders, such of them as are frequenters of the garden and the 

 field. The ungraceful forms of those among the same tribe 



' Abraxas grossulariata 



