THE PUSS MOTH. 98 



VIL THE PUSS MOTH A LIFE HISTORY. 

 Dicranura vinula. 



Read before the Folkestone Natural History Society, 

 December, 15th, 1874. 



There are Entomologists and Entomologists two 

 distinct classes, better known perhaps as students 

 and collectors, and wide is the difference between 

 them. There are those who take a delight (as every 

 true naturalist must do) in making the lives of GOD'S 

 creatures a perpetual study as well as a source of 

 endless recreation, and I may even say amusement ; 

 who prefer to watch animals in their native haunts 

 and there to trace out their habits, and their wonder- 

 ful adaptation to their physical surroundings ; or who 

 take advantage of the dominion given to man over 

 the earth and all that is in it, to capture and study 

 in captivity those points which probably never could 

 be studied in the creature's wild state. Many of 

 this class make no collections at all, but they are in 

 themselves perfect encyclopaedias of all that relates 

 to insect Hie. There are others again whose sole 

 aim is to hunt, capture, and kill ; who glory in 

 nothing so much as the possession of a species which 

 their near neighbour and friend does not possess 

 whose greatest boast is that they have a unique 

 specimen. The habits of their so-called pets are 

 utterly unknown to them, and they will spend a 

 small fortune in purchasing specimens which they 



