Domestication of Foreign Butterjiies- 369 



some idea, however vague and inadequate, of the boundless and 

 inexhaustible storehouse of materials, which any thing like a 

 complete knowledge of the instincts and economy of the whole 

 class would exhibit. 



To return for a moment to the Saturnia luna. The intro- 

 duction of this insect to Europe renders it extremely probable, 

 that if entomologists were as assiduous in their own calling as 

 botanists are in theirs, the eggs of many beautiful species might 

 be transported from foreign countries, and bred here, and that 

 thus a new source of admiration and delight would be created not 

 only to the man of science, but to the poet and the painter. The 

 greater proportion of those ornamental plants which now form 

 the most attractive features in our gardens, are the original pro- 

 duce of foreign climes ; and it would greatly add to their beauty, 

 if a few of the many gorgeous butterflies which hovered around 

 them in their original countries, were now seen among the par- 

 terres of the British flower-garden, or among the rich and varied 

 pastures of England. The beautiful Apollo Butterfy, frequent 

 in the Valley of Chamouni, and other parts of Switzerland, was 

 found by M. Bory St Vincent, at a considerable elevation on 

 the mountains of the Sierra Nevada in Spain ; and, as it is 

 an autumnal species, its eggs must be so constituted as to en- 

 dure, without injury, the influence of the severe winters of 

 Switzerland and other central parts of Europe. According 

 to Degeer, it is not uncommon, even in Sweden, where it 

 will probably be found to occupy less elevated stations than 

 in the south, in conformity with a rule which obtains both 

 among plants and animals, viz. the higher the latitude the 

 lower the locality, and vice versa. In trying entomological ex- 

 periments of the kind alluded to, care, of course, should be taken 

 to import only such species as are known not to feed upon culi- 

 nary or other plants of value, for their economical uses. It 

 may be objected to the practicability of such endeavours, that 

 the larva would necessarily perish for want of those particular 

 plants on which their progenitors had been accustomed to feed ; 

 but I believe, that as necessity is the mother of invention among 

 the human race, so among the more insignificant tribes of the 

 insect world ; though a decided preference may be exhibited to 

 one plant rather than another, yet where that chosen one does 



JANUAKV — MAUCir 1830. A a 



