SWALLOW-TAIL. 319 



Commencing its nocturnal rambles before the usual con- 

 clusion of our evening walks, the delicate sulphur-coloured 

 pinions of this pretty insect often flit past us in the June and 

 July twilights ; when, in accordance with a comparison already 

 suggested, we might fancy it an evening primrose on the 

 wing. We have noted also its earlier and certainly much 

 closer resemblance to a vegetable form, while yet in the shape 

 of a " walking-branch" caterpillar of the elder, whereon, in the 

 month of May, it is often to be found, either as a brown stick, 

 or as a brown chrysalis^ enclosed elegantly and curiously in a 

 cradle of leaves, wherein it hangs suspended like the nests of 

 certain foreign birds.* 



The wing of the moth, as of the butterfly, generally owes 

 its beauty to the rich mosaic of minute scales or feathers by 

 which it is overlaid, entirely, as it would seem, by way of 

 ornament ; for the creature can use its pinions when reduced 

 to transparent membranes, as well as other insects, or a few 

 of its own tribe in which they are naturally clear. Its pro- 

 gress through the air is no more impeded by the rough hand- 

 ling of wantonness or weather, than the flight of true genius 

 by the rough rubs of fortune, however they may strip its soar- 

 ing energies of the variegated trappings of worldly splendour. 



There exists, however, a singular and beautiful family of 

 moths, called the "Plumed," to which the above remark is 

 by no means applicable the wing feathers of this tribe being 



* Vignette to "Moths as Operatives." 



