INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 5 



those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving 

 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 tvhigs ; 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, sometimes this 

 mimicry is so exquisite, that you would mistake the whole insect for a por- 

 tion 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 aho 

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

 j)illars of many species of certain tribes of butterflies (A^j/mpkalidce), the 

 spines and prickles which are given as a Noli me tangere armour 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 

 l)utterfly's wing under a microscope, that avenue to unseen glories in new 

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

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

 and diversifying the colouring of this kind of clothing beyond all parallel. 

 The rich and velvet tints of the phmiuge of birds are not superior to what 

 the curious oLserver may discover in a variety of Lepidopfera, and those 

 many-coloured eyes which deck so gloriously the peacock's tail are imi- 

 tated vvith success by one of our most common butterflies.'^ Feathers are 

 thought to be peculiar to birds ; but insects often imitate them in their 

 antennas*, 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 delicate 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 meandering course of the 

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

 like beautiful marbles ; others have the semblance 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, andeven animals.® On 

 many, taking her rule and compasses, she draws vvith precision mathema- 

 tical figures; points, lines, angles, triangles ^ squares, and circles. On 



1 Various species of the families GrylUdtB and Mantidce. 



' Many species of Fhasmic/cB. 



3 De Geer, I. t. 3. f. 1— 3i. &c. Audouin, Hist. Pyr. de la Vigne, PI. 3. 



■* Vanessa lo. 



5 Culex, Cluronomus, and Other Tijmlidce. 



6 Plernphnrus. 



7 Hairs of many of the Apidai. Mon. Ap. Aiifj. I. 1. 10. •*d. 1. f. 1. 6. 



8 Plinns imperial is L. 



9 Trichius ( Archimcdius K.) delta F. 



n 3 



