144 BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 



attributes have been despised. In the 

 eighteenth century the censors of public 

 taste held that the proper study of man- 

 kind was man. It need, therefore, excite no 

 surprise when we find even Goldsmith in his 

 Animated Nature writing about butterflies in 

 this fashion : ' It has been the amusement of 

 some to collect these animals from different 

 parts of the world, or to breed them from 

 caterpillars at home. These they arrange in 

 systematic order, or dispose so as to make 

 striking and agreeable pictures ; and all must 

 grant that this specious idleness is far prefer- 

 able to that unhappy state which is produced 

 by a total want of employment.' Specious 

 idleness indeed 1 How little he knew of the 

 true delights of collecting and studying these 

 lovely insects ! Hear one who, although he 

 did not aspire to the literary standing of 

 Goldsmith, was a far better naturalist. In 

 his Naturalist on the River Amazons, p. 353, Mr. 

 Bates sums up his theories in these prophetic 

 words : * The study of butterflies creatures 

 selected as the types of airiness and frivolity 

 instead of being despised, will some day be 

 valued as one of the most important branches 



