LONDON INSECTS 79 



but it is no more than would be actually the case if the 

 human animal grew at the rate a well-fed Caterpillar 

 will grow in one summer month. Mr. Newport has 

 given from actual observation the weights of the larva 

 of the Privet Hawk Moth the large, smooth, green 

 Caterpillar, with pink stripes on the side and a horn at 

 the tail at different ages. On leaving the egg, its 

 weight is not more than about one-eightieth of a grain. 

 When full grown, thirty-two days later,it weighs from 120 

 to 140 grains. Take only the lowest weight, 120 grains, 

 it is very nearly 10,000 times as great as the weight on 

 leaving the egg ! Apply this to a baby of say ten Ibs, 

 a good big child, but nothing extraordinary and we 

 have a very simple sum: 10 Ibs. x 10,000 = 100,000 

 Ibs., something over 40 tons. And all in one month ! 

 The weight of Jumbo when he left England was 

 estimated at something like seven tons. 



But we have strayed from the two-wings to the fairy- 

 land of insects, the country of the Lepidoptera Butter- 

 flies and Moths. 



A glorious Red Admiral was sunning himself out- 

 side Buckingham Palace on the 17th September 1883, 

 shaking the creases out of a very perfect uniform 

 black, white, and scarlet evidently just out of the 

 packing-case. But we have not often, at least in the 

 central parks or squares, any great number of the 

 brighter-coloured Butterflies, though in London, as 

 elsewhere, the common White Cabbage Butterflies are 

 plentiful. W T e have become, happily, as a nation, much 

 more tender-hearted than we were in the days of bull- 



