HABITS OF INSECTS. 281 



hours and places in which they delight to move ; so 

 much so, that I think if we were to invert the order 

 of their appearance, the singular unfitness of many 

 of them for their stations would be immediately 

 manifest to us. The butterfly, light, airy, joyous, 

 replete with life, sports in the sunshine, wantons on 

 the flower, and trips from bloom to bloom, gay as 

 the brilliant morn, and cheerful as the splendour of 

 heaven : heat and light appear to be the very prin- 

 ciple of his being ; in a cloudy or a chilly atmo- 

 sphere his energies become suspended, and, closing 

 his wings, he reposes like a sickly thing upon some 

 drooping flower : but let the cloud disperse, the sun 

 break out, he springs again to active life ; associ- 

 ating with the birds of day, and denizen of the 

 same scenes, he only seems of a less elevated order. 

 But the moth, though possessing at times sufficient 

 activity for self-preservation, is less buoyant, less 

 sprightly on the wing, avoids the heat and light, 

 the higher ranges of the air, and seeks his mate or 

 his food in the shelter of the hedge or the ditch, 

 amidst foliage and shade, where we may see him 

 hovering sedately around some flower, or passing 

 on his way with quiet steady flight, accordant with 

 the silence and twilight of the hour : companion of 

 the owl and the bat, his grave actions are quite 

 unsuitable to the gaiety, the flutter of a summer's 

 sun ; the former is emblematic of levity and dis- 

 play, the latter of retirement and shade. And thus 

 each, though but slightly seen, is in admirable har- 

 mony with the season in which it moves, manifest- 



