Tlie Purple Emperor Butterfly, or Empiror ijf JIoiocco. 



CHAPTER I. 



APOLOGY FOR THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Peter Pindar, in his tale of Sir Joseph Banks and the 

 Emperor of Morocco, not only gives the opinion of the un- 

 lettered rustic on the subject of insect-hunting, but his own 

 opinion, and the opinion of ninety-nine persons out of a 

 hundred, even at the present day ; namely, that a person 

 who could take an interest in pursuing a butterfly must be 

 a madman. The collector of insects must therefore make 

 up his mind to sink in the opinion of his friends ; — to be 

 the object of the undisguised pity and ridicule of the mass 

 of mankind, from the moment in which he commences so 

 insignificant a pursuit : and precisely in proportion as he 

 enters on the subject scientifically, will this pity and ridi- 



