LOBSTER MOTH. Ill 



Taking a sylvan stroll, in the above-named months of August 

 and September, and looking about and above us, we may per- 

 ceive, seated on a branch probably of oak, or maybe of 

 beech, or lime, or hazel a little monster, with head and 

 shoulders elevated, a la Sphinx, and, stretched out above them, 

 a pair of bony arms, jointed, long, and not unlike the claws of 

 a lobster, while, to balance these, a couple of slender, horny 

 appendages arise from near the tail. 



This strange little animal, after having passed the winter as 

 a chrysalis, enclosed in a silken web, and that often between 

 leaves, comes forth, in the present month, a Moth, y'clept, 

 from the monstrous figure of its caterpillar, " the Lobster," 

 although, as a perfect insect, it displays, neither in form nor 

 colour, any of the singularity which distinguishes its earliest 

 stage. On the contrary, this beautiful Moth, like those well- 

 judging few who throw aside, in maturity, the conceited eccen- 

 tricities by which they love to be distinguished in youth, is an 

 insect as little conspicuous, though, withal, as richly clad, as 

 any of its tribe for the hues of its wings, being grey, brown, 

 red, and ochre, harmoniously variegated, assimilate very closely 

 to the colouring of the oak bark and that of other trees, 

 whereon, by good fortune or by good looking for, the 

 " Lobster '' may sometimes, about noontide, be " caught 

 napping/ 7 



In following the " Lobster '' to its winged estate, we have 

 inadvertently given to eccentricity precedence over rank, or we 



H 2 



