288 SWALLOW-TAIL MOTH. 



the breeze. Scarcely less elegant,, and somewhat resembling 

 them in shape and hue, are the wings of our Swallow-tail moth, 

 sprung of the walking branch. So, if we may fairly liken the 

 earliest of our spring papillons to a primrose of the day, we 

 may quite as justly compare our graceful flitter through the 

 summer twilight to a primrose of the evening. 



The prevailing hue of the above and other branch- like 

 crawlers, found not unfrequently on the oak, elm, and other 

 trees, is brown, varied, like bark, with tints of green and 

 grey ; thus, in their colouring as well as in their dry rigidity of 

 outline, corresponding to their name of walking-rtf<?//<$ ; but 

 there are a few much more delicate and tender-looking sprigs 

 of the same family, which would be better designated by that 

 of wsdking-stalfa. Of this kind is a slender green Looper 

 which, in the months of May and June, we have found feeding 

 on the leaflets of the rose, or stretched out motionless, at some 

 angle, with the ravaged leaf-stalk, which it then exactly 

 mimics. When this rampant stalk becomes a quiet chrysalis, 

 self-suspended to a branch, it still retains its colour of bright 

 vernal green, exchanged for orange and brown when it 

 emerges, a pretty moth. 



So much for walking-;w2<7^s of British growth ; neither, 

 as aforesaid, is a walking-^^/* a wonder to be seen alive only in 

 foreign parts. We must wait, perhaps, till the arrival of 

 July ; but then, if, with eyes prepared, we look amongst the 

 foliage of a mingled hedge, we are likely to detect, on a 



