126 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



one else is now parson of his parish. I have not taken 

 the pains to inquire; but, dead or alive, I cannot 

 imagine him in that beautiful country of the Future 

 which he perhaps spoke about to the old cottage woman. 

 I cannot imagine him in white raiment, with a golden 

 harp in his hand ; for if here, in this country, he could 

 see nothing in a humming-bird hawk-moth among the 

 flowers in the sunshine but an object to be collected, what 

 in the name of wonder will he have to harp about ! 



The humming-bird hawk, owing to its diurnal habits, 

 may be seen by any one at its best ; but as to the other 

 species that equal and surpass it in lustre, their beauty, 

 so far as man is concerned, is all wasted on the evening 

 gloom. They appear suddenly, are vaguely seen for a 

 few moments, then vanish ; and instead of the clear-cut, 

 beautiful form, the rich and delicate colouring and airy, 

 graceful motions, there is only a dim image of a moving 

 grey or brown something which has passed before us. 

 And some of the very best are not to be seen even as 

 vague shapes and as shadows. What an experience it 

 would be to look on the death's-head moth in a state of 

 nature, feeding among the flowers in the early evening, 

 with some sunlight to show the delicate grey-blue 

 markings and mottlings of the upper- and the inde- 

 scribable yellow of the under- wings is there in all 

 nature so soft and lovely a hue ? Even to see it alive 

 hi the only way we are able to do, confined in a box in 

 which we have hatched it from a chrysalis dug up in 

 the potato patch and bought for sixpence from a work- 



