LÉPIDOPTEROLOGIE COMPAREE 



their pristine freshness; and it may be adcled that to Ray we 

 owe the English names for such species as were known at the 

 tirae. But to Maria Sibylla Alerian, his contemporary, belongs 

 the crédit of the first faithfully coloured illustrations of insect 

 metamorphosis, many of which, bright as on the day they were 

 painted, would satisfy even the exacting Oberthùrian test. The 

 figures of the " Metamorphosis Insectorum Surmamensium " 

 require no peroxide application to restore their brilliance. If 

 Linneus named his continental " White Admirai " after this 

 Sibylla, she fully deserved the honour. The western palaearctic 

 butterflies were, indeed, fortunate in the occasion of their chris- 

 tening". The loveliest names of the Greek m^ythology are theirs ; 

 to-day, the new discoveries are barbarously branded with the 

 same sort of nomenclatural horrors as disfigure the horticultu- 

 ralists' catalogues, " Ivrucpen, '" " Schmidlii, " " Haberhaueri, 

 and the like. Albin was followed by the more elaborate Ben- 

 jamin Wilkes, whose art and dévotion to his hobby once more 

 evoked the sneering satire of the wits, with Shenstone, who ought 

 to hâve known better, at their head. 



" O Wilkes ! what poet's loftiest lays 

 Can match thy labours, and thy praise, 

 Immortal Sage! by Fate decreed 

 To guard the moth's illustrious breed 

 Till fluttering swarms on swarms arise 

 And ail our wardrobes teem with Aies ! 



" The mean love of Nature's vermin " was incompréhensible 

 to the poetasters; m this case it was the really beautiful illustra- 

 tions which aroused their ire. 



Huebner, so long as he drew from Nature and not from the 

 représentations of older authors, reached a high standard of 

 accuracy. His hand-coloured plates are as fine and conscientious 

 in design as any produced in the nineteenth century; but the 

 pigments hâve not always stood the test of time, and when. 



