HOT-HOUSE INSECTS. 



house exotics should want their insect adjuncts glorious but- 

 terflies glittering beetles walking leaves spectral branches 

 living lanthorns, which latter would afford us, by the way, 

 an opportunity of seeing for ourselves whether the Chinese 

 lanthorn-uy, as has been asserted by some recent travellers, 

 carries a lanthorn without a light " Incus a non lucendo" 



We have spoken elsewhere of the most interesting of all 

 objects for which insects can be kept that of observing their 

 transformations, and the varied processes of their constructive 

 skill those especially of the Order Lepidoptera, comprising 

 moths and butterflies. If this practice, instead of bein^ 

 nearly confined to professed entomologists, were very generally 

 followed, the country would have fewer idlers, nature more 

 admirers, and (it could not be otherwise) the God of Nature 

 more praise. 



Were we to talk about pet caterpillars, we might be set 

 down as more monstrously absurd than even in our recom- 

 mendation of pet-beetles ; but, however people may smile at 

 the idea, it is seriously and perfectly true that we have had 

 certain caterpillars long enough in our keeping to have 

 acquired for them a sort of fondness, and to have felt sorry 

 when their change came. Of these some were the beautiful 

 larvse* of the sphinx or hawk moths, winch, with their gaily- 

 coloured and sometimes shagreened skins, mitre-shaped heads, 

 horn-like tails, and sphinx-like attitudes, seem to have so 



* Larva? of the Sphingichc (Hawk moths or sphinxes.) 



