24 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



CHAPTEE III. 



WHAT BUTTERFLIES NEVER DO GROUNDLESS TERROR A MISTAKE 

 USES OF BUTTERFLIES MORAL OF BUTTERFLY LIFE PSYCHE 

 THE BUTTERFLY AN EMBLEM OF THE SOUL THE ARTIST AND 

 THE BUTTERFLY. 



AMONG the negative attributes of butterflies, I may state 

 positively, that no butterfly whatever can either sting or bite 

 in the least degree; and from their total harmlessness to- 

 wards the person of man, conjoined with their outward 

 attractiveness, they merit and enjoy an exemption from 

 those feelings of dread and disgust that attach to many, 

 or, I may say, to almost all other tribes of insects ; even to 

 their equally harmless near relatives the larger moths. 

 At least, it has never been my misfortune to meet with 

 a person weak-minded enough to be afraid of a butter- 

 fly, though I have seen some exhibit symptoms of the 

 greatest terror at the proximity of a large Hawk-moth, 

 and some of the thick-bodied common moths " Match- 

 owlets," the country folk call them. 



Once, also, I listened to the grave recital by a 

 classical scholar too of a murderous onslaught made 

 by a Privet Hawk-moth on the neck of a lady, and how 

 it " bit a piece clean out" Of course I attempted to 

 prove, by what seemed to me very fair logic, that the 

 moth, having neither teeth nor even any mouth capable 

 of opening, but only a weak hollow tongue to suck 

 honey through, was utterly incapable of biting or in- 

 flicting any wound what/ever. But, as is usual in such 

 cases, my entomological theory went for nothing in face 

 of the gentleman's knock-down battery of facts ocular 

 tacts : he had seen the moth, and he had seen the wound: 



