88 HOT-HOUSE INSECTS. 



house exotics should want their insect adjuncts glorious but- 

 terflies glittering beetles walking leaves spectral branches 

 living lanthorns, which latter would afford us, by the way, 

 an opportunity of seeing for ourselves whether the Chinese 

 lanthorn-fly, as has been asserted by some recent traveller, 

 carries a lanthorn without a light " lucus a non lucendo" 



We have spoken elsewhere of the most interesting of all 

 objects for which insects can be kept that of observing their 

 transformations, and the various processes of their construc- 

 tive skill those especially of the Order Lepidoptera, com- 

 prising moths and butterflies. If this practice, instead of being 

 nearly confined to professed entomologists, were very gene- 

 rally followed, the country would have fewer idlers, nature 

 more admirers, and (it could not be otherwise) the God of 

 Nature more praise. 



Were we to talk about pet caterpillars, we might be set 

 down as more monstrously absurd than even in our recom- 

 mendation of pet beetles ; but, however people may smile at 

 the idea, it is seriously and perfectly true that we have had 

 certain caterpillars long enough in our keeping to have 

 acquired for them a sort of fondness, and to have felt sorry 

 when their change came. Of these some were the beautiful 

 larvae* of the sphinx or hawk moths, which, with their gaily- 

 coloured and sometimes shagreened skins, mitre-shaped heads, 

 horn-like tails, and sphinx-like attitudes, seem to have so 



* Larvae of the Sph.ingid.3e (Hawk moths or sphinxes.) 



