10 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



terfliesa. Feathers are thought to be peculiar to birds; 

 but insects often imitate them in their antennae'', wings *^, 

 and even sometimes in the covering of their bodies'*. 

 — We admire with reason the coats of quadrupeds, 

 whether their skins be covered with pile, or wool, or fur; 

 yet are not perhaps aware that a vast variety of insects 

 are clothed with all these kinds of hair, but infinitely 

 finer and more silky in texture, more brilliant and deli- 

 cate in colour, and more variously shaded than what any 

 other animals can pretend to. 



In variegation insects certainly exceed every other 

 class of animated beings. Nature, in her sportive mood, 

 when painting them, sometimes imitates the clouds of 

 heaven ; at others, the meandring course of the rivers 

 of the earth, or the undulations of their waters : many 

 are veined like beautiful marbles ; others have the sem- 

 blance of a robe of the finest net-work thrown over them ; 

 some she blazons with heraldic insignia, giving them to 

 bear in fields sable— azure — vert — gules — argent and 

 or, fesses — bars — bends — crosses — crescents — stars, and 

 even animals ^ On many, taking her rule and com- 

 passes, she draws with precision mathematical figures ; 

 points, lines, angles, triangles ^, squares, and circles. On 

 others she pourtrays, with mystic hand, what seem like 

 hieroglyphic symbols, or inscribes them with the charac- 

 ters and letters of various languages, often very correctly 

 formed 5; and, what is more extraordinary, she has re- 



=• Vanessa lo. 



*> Culex, C/iironomiis, and other TiptUarice. 



^ Ptero])horus. 



■' Hairs o( many o( the J pickc. Mon. Ap. Ang. 1. 1. 10, **d. 1./. \.b. 



'' Ptimis impcr'mlis, L. ' TricMus delta, F. 



? Acrocinus luugimanus, F. Vanessa, C. album, Acronycta i^, Plusia y. 



