98 COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 



Erro. But a butterfly is not, 



Ent. You are perfectly right ; but yet you must often 

 have observed at Darenth with what unconcern the bramble- 

 dehghting Paphia opens and shuts her wings in the sunshine, 

 long after they have lost their original shape and colour, and 

 are, in fact, little more than mutilated transparent tendons. 

 This would never be the case, had she feeling in these wings: 

 she must have long since died from such repeated mutila- 

 tion. 



Erro. There is something in that ; but may not the wing 

 of a butterfly be analogous to hair or nails, as you suggested 

 but now, in man, and therefore have no sensation ? 



Ent. I think not. The wings of insects have a mem- 

 braneous texture, which, like those of the bat, partake of the 

 properties of other parts of their frame : but surely you will 

 admit legs to an equal feeling with other parts, and the loss of 

 these is equally common, — you must have remarked it among 

 the gnats ? 



Erro. I have been willing to listen, Moffy, to all this, 

 because I like to hear you talk ; but I agreed with you before 

 you began, and therefore needed not to be convinced. One 

 argument, however, you have not availed yourself of, which 

 seems to me even more strong than any you have used : it is 

 this, — a beneficent Providence would hardly have subjected 

 such hosts of creatures to the constant loss of members, did 

 such loss cost to them the same anguish which it does to the 

 larger animals. An insect, perfect in all its members, and a 

 human being deficient in any, are almost equally uncommon. 



Ent. Roey, it seems to me that entomology, particularly 

 in this country, has never been raised to that station among 

 sciences which it deserves : I fear it has not advocates which 

 do it sufficient justice. How some of the dons would sneeze 

 at me if they heard this ! It has yet to become a science. But 

 we are not really so low as the world about us believe : they 

 would set us down with the auricula, tulip, pigeon, rabbit, and 

 bull-dog fanciers. 



Erro. I understand even your own relations condemn your 

 insect-hunting as a lamentably weak pursuit, — a strange waste 

 of time, — a sort of half-madness. 



Ent. They will be proud to own me some day or other. 

 I do not think I am for a long life ; and a few years after death 



