INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 41 



sinking into valleys, glens, and caves^ ; while not a few are covered with 

 branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees.^ 



What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various 

 beauties ! some in the delicacy and variety of their colors, colors not 

 like those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, sur- 

 viving their subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when 

 it was alive ; others, again, in the veining and texture of their wings ; and 

 others in the rich cottony down that clothes them. To such perfection, 

 indeed, has nature in them carried her mimetic art, that you would declare, 

 upon beholding some insects, that they had robbed the trees of their 

 leaves to form for themselves artificial wings, so exactly do they resemble 

 them in their form, substance, and vascular structure; some representing 

 green leaves, and others those that are dry and withered.^ Nay, some- 

 times this mimicry is so exquisite, that you would mistake the whole insect 

 for a portion of the branching spray of a tree."* No mean beauty in some 

 plants arises from the fluting and punctuation of their stems and leaves, 

 and a similar ornament conspicuously distinguishes numerous insects, which 

 also imitate with multiform variety, as may particularly be seen in the 

 caterpillars of many species of certain tribes of butterflies (^Nymphalidce), 

 the spines and prickles which are given as a Noli me tangere armor to 

 several vegetable productions. 



In fishes the lucid scales, of varied hue, that cover and defend them, 

 are universally admired, and esteemed their peculiar ornament ; but place 

 a butterfly's wing under a microscope, that avenue to unseen glories in new 

 worlds, and you will discover that nature has endowed the most numerous 

 of the insect tribes with the same privilege, multiplying in them the 

 forms^, and diversifying the coloring of this kind of clothing beyond all 

 parallel. The rich and velvet tints of the plumage of birds are not 

 superior to what the curious observer may discover in a variety of Lepid- 

 optera ; and those many-colored eyes which deck so gloriously the 

 peacock's tail are imitated with success by one of our most common but- 

 terflies.® Feathers are thought to be peculiar to birds ; but insects often 

 imitate them in their antennae', wings^, and even sometimes in the cover- 

 ing 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 delicate in color, 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 meandering course of the 

 rivers of the earth, or the undulations of their waters : many are veined 



' Many of the ScarabceidcB, Bynastid-x, &c. 



2 Many caterpillars of Butterflies. (Marian, Surinam, t. xxii. xxv. &c.) and of Samflies. 

 (Reaum. v. t. xii./. 7, 8 — 14.) 

 2 Various species of the families Gri/Uidce and Mantidee. 



* Many species of PhasmidcB. 



* De Geer, I. t. 3./. 1—34, Ace. Audouin, Hist. Pyr. de la Vigne, pi. 3. 



* Vanessa lo. ' Culez., Chironomus, and other TipuUdce. ^ Pieropkorus. 

 ® Hairs of many of the Apidce. Mon. Ap, Ang. I. t. 10, **d. 1./. 1. b. 



4* 



