MICROSCOPIC MOTHS. 159 



CHAPTER YI. 



MICROSCOPIC MOTHS. 



Small fowl that sun their wings on the petals of wild flowers." 



Proverbial Philosophy. 



A NEW class of objects, especially adapted for the 

 binocular microscope and a three-inch object glass, will 

 give the young student both surprise and delight, when 

 from his own researches he obtains these common and yet 

 little known Lepidoptera. Their history has been written 

 most ably by Staintoii, in seven unattainable volumes, and 

 the 'Insecta Britannica' has an extinct volume on the 

 Tiniena at least it is out of print, and to be found only in 

 museums and the libraries of the subscribers, so that what 

 I now give is chiefly the result of my own observations and 

 collecting. I purpose a much more detailed account, with 

 illustrations, for " the Intellectual Observer/' at the proper 

 time. 



One of the wonders of my childhood was the variety and 

 strangeness of the hieroglyphics I found on bramble-leaves 

 and rose-leaves, the white winding stream with a dark line 

 waving through it; and after picking open several, and 

 finding within the small green caterpillars, and after often 

 gathering, and keeping them only to find the leaves wither 

 and the larvae die, I made small muslin bags, and covering 

 the mined and rolled leaves, I was rewarded by the perfect 

 insects, of such exceeding beauty as led me to renewed 

 attention and patient watching. 



Every folded leaf, in truth, is the habitation of a micro- 

 scopic moth in its larval state, and beneath the leaf a blotch, 

 a pucker, or a tiny tent, will, if watched, give one of these 

 beautiful objects. They may be caught with a net, swept 

 off the bushes they frequent at certaiu times ; but they are 

 so very delicate and teuder, that it is scarcely possible to do 



