viii PREFACE. 



But there is another and a better way to obtain Butterflies. I have fully 

 explained, in the Introduction which follows, that a Butterfly was not always a 

 Butterfly, but was 



" Once a worm, a thing that crept 

 On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept." 



In this state of worm or caterpillar, Butterflies of many kinds are most easy to 

 obtain: to my notion, an umbrella and a walking-stick are the best implements. 

 Spread the umbrella; turn it upside down; hold it under a shrub, a bunch of 

 nettles, or the bough of a tree: thrash the foliage with your walking-stick, and 

 caterpillars without number will fall into the umbrella: pick them up, put them 

 in tin boxes, and take them home. They will not all produce Butterflies; many 

 of them moths ; but whether caterpillars of moths or Butterflies, they are all worth 

 keeping. "Caterpillars being mostly eaters of vegetable matter, there is no difficulty 

 in providing and renewing the plants upon which they feed. A garden pot, half 

 filled with loose, sandy earth, with a few pieces of cane bent over, and the ends 

 inserted in the pot ; this frame covered with gauze, and a string passed over it 

 below the mouth of the pot, forms a very good cage for caterpillars. A slip of 

 the food-plant should be first placed in a phial of water and put in the centre 

 of the cage, which should be kept in a shady place. According to the size of 

 the caterpillars, and the heat of the weather, the food will require to be renewed 

 from time to time." These instructions are copied from the " World of Insects, by 

 J. W. Douglas/' and others, more minute, elaborate, and complete, will be found 

 in that excellent little book, "The Insect-Hunter's Companion," by the Rev. Joseph 

 Greene. I would most willingly quote pages from this last-named work, which 

 is published by Mr. Van Voorst at Is. 6d. ; but I imagine that every collector 

 of insects must of necessity purchase the book itself, and it would be useless to 

 possess the same information in two forms. 



Treated in accordance with Mr. Greene's instructions, and carefully watched 

 from time to time, the caterpillar will soon grow to its full size, will fix itself 

 to the pot, the muslin, the leaves, or the twigs, and then turn to a chrysalis, 

 and subsequently to a Butterfly, in the manner which I have fully described at 

 page 14. 



There is another very curious circumstance which attends the birth of a 

 Butterfly a circumstance that has been noticed by all naturalists and in all ages. 

 This is so well described in that inimitable work, Kirby and Spence's "Intro- 

 duction to Entomology," that I shall quote their description as being better than 

 anything I can write myself: 



"Many species of Butterflies, when they emerge from the chrysalis state, discharge 

 a reddish fluid, which in some instances, where their numbers have been considerable, 

 has produced the appearance of a shower of blood ; and by this natural fact, all 

 those bloody showers recorded by historians as preternatural, and regarded where 



