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duced a much more lively recollection of our past feelings, and of the objects and 

 events which caused them, than the most perfect description could have done ; and 

 we have lingered a considerable time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming, if I 

 may so express it, the departed state of our minds. How much there is in a thou- 

 sand spots of the earth that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious individual." 

 It was on a summer evening, of early life, when little more than a child, in 

 rambling through a wood on a holiday, my attention was drawn to a sprav on 

 which rested a Camberwell Beauty. I had never seen such perfection before. 

 My eye rested on the rich dark velvety wings, fringed with ermine white, relieved 

 by an inner border of metallic blue spots, like bracelets of lapis lazuli. At this 

 moment I could mark the very spot in the forest where this vision was revealed, 

 and well do I remember the thrill of delight with which I captured and carried off 

 my prize in triumph, to exhibit before a little knot of schoolfellows. I can see 

 their uplifted hands, I can hear their exclamations of surprise, as they beheld the 

 splendid captive. I can recall their features and their forms as if now living, 

 though every individual among them has long since been called away, and now 

 possibly familiarized with greater things than it is permitted man's philosophy to 

 dream of here. But to me, trifling as this little incident may appear to many, the 

 results through life have neither been unimportant, useless, or uninfluential ; for it 

 is to it I stand indebted for many a happy hour. That " poor insect" awakened a 

 taste which has never slumbered ; and the cultivation of natural history has been 

 my solace in times and seasons, when the mind required something to fall back 

 upon, apart from the business and pursuits of the world. It so happened that 

 from the time I have alluded to until a few summers ago, in one of the mountain 

 passes of the Pyrenees, I had never met with a single living specimen of Vanessa 

 antiopa, when, on a lovely day, on a spray the very counterpart of that of the days 

 of my childhood, I saw the expanded wings of this insect, and the days of " auld 

 lang syne," which first introduced it to my notice, came across my mind vivid and 

 clear as though but of yesterday. This summer, again (and not unfrequently) I 

 fell in with this associate of early years. Children, indeed, may they be called of 

 the sun. In the hot and sultry hours of noonday, they would flit by, rendering it 

 almost impossible to watch their course ; if in these flights two or three met in the 

 glade, they paused in their speed, and, fluttering together, so busied themselves in 

 their conflict of rivalry or affection, I know not which, that I more than once 

 caught two at a time, and after admiring them, in gratitude for the benefit I had 

 received at their hands, sent them forth once again to enjoy their summer revel- 

 ries. At other times (I particularly recollect one occasion), in a wood on the sum- 

 mit of the Drackenfels, when the wind was rather keen, I found numbers resting 

 on the backs of trees, in a state of stupor ; they made no attempts to escape, and 

 when thrown into the air their wings barely opened, or flapping feebly, eased their 

 fall,- or enabled them to seek repose on the stem of the nearest tree. 



