MISCELLANEOUS. 361 



(Deilephila) hippophaes, formerly sold at sixty francs each, 

 and of which one of the first discovered specimens was sold 

 for two hundred francs, is so plentiful, in consequence of tho 

 numbers collected and reared through their several stages, hv 

 the peasants all along the course of the Arve, where the 

 plant, Hippophae i^hamoides, on which the larvae feed, and 

 the imago takes its specific name, grows in profusion, that a 

 specimen costs but three francs. A general taste also for the 

 science, and an appreciation for beauty, is spread by the more 

 striking Alpine species, such as Parnassius apollo and Gali- 

 chroma alpina, not only among the travelers who buy them 

 for their beauty, who before would hardly deign to look upon 

 an insect, but among the more ignorant Alpine collectors 

 themselves.^ • 



Navarette, under the head of " Insects and Yermin," speaks 

 of an animal which the Chinese call Jen Ting, or Wall- 

 dragon, because it runs up and down walls. It is also, says 

 this traveler, called the Guard of the Palace, and this for the 

 following reason : The emperors were accustomed to make 

 an ointment of this insect, and some other ingredients, with 

 which they anointed their concubines' wrists, as the mark of 

 it continued as long as they had not to do with man; but 

 as soon as they did so, it immediately vanished, by which 

 their honesty or falsehood was discovered. Hence it came 

 that this insect was called the Guard of the Court, or, of the 

 court ladies. Navarette laments that all men have not a 

 knowledge of this wonderful ointment.- 



Navarette tells us he once caught (in China?) a small in- 

 sect that was injurious to poultry — "a very deformed insect, 

 and of a strange shape" — when, as soon as it was known, 

 several women ran to him to beg its tail. He gave it to 

 them, and they told him it was of excellent use wlien dried, 

 and made into powder, " being a prodigious help to women 

 in labor, to forward their delivery, if they drank it in a little 

 wine."^ 



The Irish have a large beetle of which strange tales are 

 believed; they term it the Coffin-cutter, and deem it in some 

 way connected with the grave and purgatory.* 



1 Mag. of Nat. Hist, iv. 148-9. 



2 Hist, of China, B. I. c. 18, and ChurcliiU's Col. of Voy. and Trav., 

 i. 39. 



3 Churchill's Col. of Voy. and Trav., i. 212. 



4 The Mirror, xix. 180. 



