Bidterjiy Collector's Vade Mecum. 239 



gratification ? Is it to be regretted that many of the Spitalfields weavers 

 spend their Saint Monday holidays in search of some of the more splendid 

 Lepidoptera, instead of smoking in an alehouse ? or, is it not rather to be 

 wished that they should recreate their leisure-hours by breathing the pure 

 air, while in pursuit of this * untaxed and undisputed game? ' Insects (and 

 more particularly butterflies) appear to have been Nature's favourite pro- 

 ductions ; in which, to recompense them for their weakness, and to manifest 

 her power and skill, she has combined and concentrated almost all that is 

 either beautiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious and sin- 

 gular in every other class and order of her children. To these her valued 

 miniatures she has given the most delicate 'touch, and highest finish of her 

 pencil, (p. 10.) 



" The splendid appearance of the plumage of tropical birds is not supe- 

 rior to what the curious observer may discover in a variety of Lepidoptera ; 

 and those many-coloured eyes, which deck so gorgeously the peacock's tail, 

 are imitated with success in Vanessa Po, one of our most common butter- 

 flies. * See,' exclaims the illustrious Linnaeus, * the large, elegant, painted 

 wings of the butterfly, four in number, covered with small imbricated scales ; 

 with these it sustains itself in the air the whole day, rivalling the flight of 

 birds, and the brilliancy of the peacock. Consider this insect through the 

 wonderful progress of its life, how different is the first period of its being 

 from the second, and both from the parent insect. Its changes are an in- 

 explicable enigma to us : we see a green caterpillar, furnished with sixteen 

 feet, creeping, hairy, and feeding upon the leaves of a plant ; this is changed 

 into a chrysalis, smooth, of a golden lustre, hanging suspended to a fixed 

 point, without feet, and subsisting without food ; this insect again under- 

 goes another transformation, acquires wings and six feet, and becomes a 

 variegated white butterfly, living by suction upon the honey of plants. 

 What has Nature produced more worthy of our admiration ? Such an ani- 

 mal coming upon the stage of the world, and playing its part there under 

 so many different masks ! In the egg of the Papilio, the epidermis or ex- 

 ternal integument falling off, a caterpillar is disclosed ; the second epidermis 

 drying, and being detached, it is a chrysalis ; and the third, a butterfly. It 

 should seem that the ancients were so struck with the transformations of 

 the butterfly, and its revival from a seeming temporary death, as to have con- 

 sidered it as an emblem of the soul, the Greek word psyche signifying both 

 the soul and a butterfly. This is also confirmed by their allegorical sculp- 

 tures, in which the butterfly occurs as an emblem of immortality.' Swara- 

 raerdam, speaking of the metamorphosis of insects, uses these strong words : 

 * This process is formed in so remarkable a manner in butterflies, that we 

 see therein the resurrection painted before our eyes, and exemplified so as 

 to be examined by our hands.' * There is no one,' says Paley, * who does 

 not possess some particular train of thought, to which the mind naturally 

 directs itself, when left entirely to its own operations. It is certain, too, 

 that the choice of this train of thinking may be directed to different ends, 

 and may appear to be more or less judiciously fixed, but in a moral view, 

 if one train of thinking be more desirable than another, it is that which 

 regards the phenomena of nature with a constant reference to a supreme 

 intelligent Author. The works of nature want only to be contemplated. 

 In every portion of them which we can descry, we find attention bestowed 

 upon the minutest objects. Every organised natural body, in the provisions 

 which it contains for its sustentation and propagation, testifies a care, on 

 the part of the Creator, expressly directed to these purposes. We are on 

 all sides surrounded by bodies wonderfully curious, and no less wonderfully 

 diversified.' Trifling, therefore, and, perhaps, contemptible, as to the un- 

 thinking may seem the study of a butterfly, yet, when we consider the art 

 and mechanism displayed in so minute a structure, the fluids circulating in 

 vessels so small as almost to escape the sight, the beauty of their wings and 



R 4* 



