534 



AUTICULATA. 



rocoininciulation, that it is one of those branches of Zoologj^ that may be pursued in any 

 situation. Inserts abound everywhere, and wherever they oecur, their habits may be observed and 

 their structuri' investi<;ati'<l. "Tliey appi-ar," if we may use the beautiful lan<Tuage of Kirby 

 ami Sneni'c, "to have been nature's favorite j)n)ductions, in which, to manifest her power and 

 skill, she has eond)ined ami concentrated almost all that is either beautiful and graceful, inter- 

 esting and alluring, or curious and singular, in every other class and order of her children. To 

 these, iu-r valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate toucli and highest finish of her 

 pencil. Nuiul)(>rs she has armed with glittering mail, which reflects a luster like that of burn- 

 ished metals; in others she lights up the dazzling radiance of polished gems. Some she has 

 deeked with what looks like liquid drops, or plates of gold and silver; or with scales or pile, which 

 mimic the color ami emit the ray of the same precious metals. Some exhibit a rude exterior, 

 like stones in their native state, while others represent their smooth and shining face, after they 

 have been submitted to the tool of the polisher; others again, like so many pigmy Atlases bear- 

 ing on their backs a microcosm, by the rugged and various elevations and depressions of their 

 tuberculated crust, present to the eye of the beholder no unapt imitation of the unequal surface 

 of the earth — now horrid with misshapen rocks, ridges and precipices, now swelling into hills 

 and mountains, and now sinking into \alleys, glens, and caves ; while not a few are covered with 

 branching spines, which fancy may form into a forest of trees. AVhat numbers vie with the 

 charming otispring of Flora in various beauties ! — some in the delicacy and variety of their 

 colors not like those of flowers, evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving their 

 subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when it was alive ; others again in 

 the veiuing and texture of their wings; and others in the rich cottony down that clothes them. 

 To such perfection, indeed, has nature in them carried her mimetic art, that you would declare, 

 upon beholding some insects, that they had robbed the trees of their leaves to form for them- 

 selves artificial wings, so exactly do they resemble them in their form, substance, and vascular 

 structure ; some representing green leaves, and others those that are dry and withered. Nay, 

 sometimes this mimicry is so exquisite that you would mistake the whole insect for a portion of 

 the branching spray of a tree. 



THE MOURNING-CLOAK Bl'TTERFLT. 



" In fishes, the lucid scales of varied hue that cover and defend them are universally admired, 

 and esteemed their peculiar ornament ; but place a butterfly's wing under a microscope— that 

 avenue to unseen glories in new worlds— and you will discover that nature has endowed the most 

 numerous of the insect tribes with the same privilege, multiplying in them the forms, and diver- 

 sifying the coloring of this kind of clothing, beyond all parallel. ^The rich and velvet tints of the 

 plumage of birds are not superior to what the curious observer may discover in a variety of 

 Lepidoptera, and those many-colored eyes which deck so gloriously the peacock's tail are hni- 



