130 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



here, where it swarms with large and brilliant-hued swallow- 

 tails and other patrician tribes, some of which, in the extent 

 and volume of their wings, may be compared to large bats. 

 These occur, too, not by straggling solitary individuals ; in 

 glancing over a blossomed field or my prairie-knoll, you 

 may see hundreds, including, I think, more than a dozen 

 species, besides other butterflies, moths, and flies." There 

 remains, as the principal memento of these months in the 

 south, still unpublished, a quarto volume entitled Entomo- 

 logia Alabamensis, containing two hundred and thirty-three 

 figures of insects, exquisitely drawn and coloured, the 

 delightful amusement of his leisure hours in the school- 

 house and at home. His powers as a zoological artist were 

 now at their height. He had been trained in the school of 

 the miniature painters, and he developed and adapted to 

 the portraiture of insects the procedure of these artists. 

 His figures are accurate reproductions, in size, colour, and 

 form, to the minutest band and speck, of what he saw 

 before him, the effect being gained by a laborious process 

 of stippling with pure and brilliant pigments. It has 

 always been acknowledged, by naturalists who have seen 

 the originals of his coloured figures, that he has had no 

 rival in the exactitude of his illustrations. They lost a 

 great deal whenever they came to be published, from the 

 imperfection of such reproducing processes as were known 

 in Philip Gosse's day. The Entomologia Alabamensis, 

 however, is one of those collections of his paintings which 

 remain unissued, and it is possible that it may yet be pre- 

 sented to the scientific world by one of the brilliant methods 

 of reproduction recently invented. 



When he first proceeded to Canada, he had described 

 himself as a very bad shot ; but practice had improved him, 

 and he was now by no means unskilful. He exercised his 

 rifle considerably in Alabama, in forming a collection of 



