THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



labours, armed with insect-net, pill-boxes, and a 

 bull's-eye lantern. He pauses in the high-hedged 

 lane, for the bats are evidently playing a success- 

 ful game here, and the tiny gray moths are flut- 

 tering in and out of the hedge by scores. Watch- 

 fully now he holds the net ; there is one whose hue 

 betokens a prize. Dash !— yes ! it is in the muslin 

 bag; and, on holding it up against the western 

 sky, he sees he has got one of the most beautiful 

 of the small moths,— the "butterfly emerald.'' 

 Yonder is a white form dancing backward and 

 forward with regular oscillation in the space of a 

 yard, close over the herbage. That must be the 

 "ghost-moth," surely I — the very same; and this is 

 secured. Presently there comes rushing down the 

 lane, with headlong speed, one far larger than the 

 common set, and visible from afar by its white- 

 ness. Prepare I Now strike 1 This prize, too, is 

 won — the "swallow-tail moth/' a cream-coloured 

 species, the noblest and most elegant of its tribe 

 Britain can boast. 



But now the west is fading to a ruddy brown, 

 and the stars are twinkling overhead. He for- 

 sakes the lane, and with palpitating heart stands 

 before one of the sugared trees. The light of his 

 lantern is flashed full on the trunk; there are at 

 least a dozen flutterers playing around the temp- 

 tation, and two or three are comfortably settled 

 down and sucking away. Most of them are mean- 

 looking, gray affairs ; but stay I what is this ap- 

 proaching, with its ten patches of rosy white on 

 its olive wings? The lovely "peach-blossom," cer- 

 tainly: and now a pill-box is over it, and it is 

 safely incarcerated. He moves cautiously to an- 

 other tree. That tiny little thing, sitting so fear 

 lessly, is the beautiful "yellow under wing," a 

 sweet little creature, and somewhat of a rarity ; 

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