54 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



sage in the Greek Testament, which tells us that Herod was eaten of worms (scholeches, 

 larvis) and died,* by " He became a Skoletobrote, and died in the enjoyment of that 

 office." 



Such also, as regards ^Natural History, was the case with Bp. Oxenden, when on 

 page 70 of " My First Year in Canada," he wrote ; 



" The little humming'-bird is rather ra-re, and they are seldom seen but in gardens. They are more like 

 butterflies or gad-flies than birds both as regards their size and habits." 



From this slovenly statement we may fairly make this deduction : Since the hum- 

 ming-bird resembles, both in size and habits, the butterfly or the gad-fly, these insects in the 

 same particulars and to the same extent, resemble one another. A somewhat startling 

 entomological conclusion ! A Jady whom I know, having read the Bishop'^i book, still 

 speaks of the ruby-throated humming bird as the Canadian gad-flij. 



Bulwer Lytton makes a remarkable mistake from sheer ignorance of entomology. 



He describes one of his heroines as a lady of refined tastes, who kept living butterflies in 



her conservatory. Some of these she allowed to escape ajter they had been confined for a 



year. (" Kenelm Chillingley," Bk. V., ch. 5). The veriest tyro in entomology knows 



that the preservation of a living butteitly for a year would be miraculous. Lytton made 



a new departure in his statement. The usual tendency of authors has been to shorten 



the insect's life. Thus Mrs. Barbauld very elegantly says : 



" Lo ! the bright train their radiant wings unfo'd, 

 With fcilver fringed and freckled o'er vith gold. 

 On the gay bosom of some fragiant flower, 

 They idly fliittering live their little hour, 

 Their life all pleas^ure and their task all play, 

 All >pring their age, and sunshine all their day." 



Another mistake frequently made in ignorance by authors is to portray the butter- 

 fly's life as one of unalloyed pleasure. Spenser says of the butteifly that — 



— "evermore, with most vaiietie, 

 And change of sweetness (for all change is sweet), 

 He casts his glutton sense to satisfie 



Now sucking of the sap of herbe most meet, 

 Or of the dew, which yet on them doth lie ; 



Now in the same bathing his tender feet, 

 And then he percheth on some branch thereby 

 To weather him, and his moyst wings to dry." 



" What more felicitie can fall to creature, ^ 



Than to enjoy delight with libertie 

 And to be lord of all the works of Nature ? 



To reign in I he aire from th' earth to highest skie. 

 To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature. 



To take whatever thing doth please the eye ? 

 Who repts not pleased with such happiness. 

 Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness." 



Commenting on these lines, Leigh Hunt wisely says : 



" After all, Spenser's picture of the butterfly's enjoyment is not complete entomologically. The luxury 

 is perfect, but the reader is not sure that it is all proper butterfly luxury, and that the man does not mix 

 'with it. . . . ■' The butterfly perhaps is no fonder of ' bathing his feet,' than we should 



be to stick in a tub of treacle. And we ought to hear more of his antennse, and feathers (for his wings are 

 full of them), and the way in which they modify, or become affected by his enjoyments."— The Indicator, 

 ch. LXIV. 



The lines are beautiful, but the picture they present of insect delight is altogether 

 overdrawn. St. Paul had a much better appreciation of things when he said, " The 

 whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now," (Rom. viii., 22). We 

 who have studied insect life can tell of the foes that beset it from its earliest stage to its 

 final scene ; the Proctotrypida? that spoil the eggs ; the Ichneumonida^ and Chalcididse 

 that assail the larvaj ; the life-sapping fungi that destroy both larvse and pupaj ; Phymata 

 erosa that lies in wait for the perfect insects in the very flower heads that attract them ; 

 the Dragon-flies, the Vespidiie, the Orabonidiij, that (as well as the insectivorous birds) 

 pursue them in the upper air, all these form a terrible array of adversaries. Then there 

 are to be borne the dark hours that curb their faculties, the rains that wash away their 



*Kai genomenos skolekobrotos exephuxen. — Acts. XII, 23. 



