iV A NOTICE OF 
If we extend the comparison to the vegetable kingdom, we shall 
find that insects vie with its finest productions; some in the delicacy 
and variety of their colours—colours, however, not like those of 
flowers, evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, outliving the 
insect which they adorn, and appearing as fresh and brilliant as when 
it was alive. Others are no less remarkable in the texture and veining 
of their wings, or in the rich cottony down, or rather feathers, that 
clothe them. Nature, indeed, has in many insects carried her mimetic 
art to so great a degree of nicety, that some of them appear to have 
robbed the trees of their leaves to form for themselves artificial wings, 
so exactly do they resemble them in form, substance, and vascular 
structure—some representing green, and others dry withered leaves. 
Sometimes this mimickry, if we may call it so, is so exquisite, that a 
whole insect might be mistaken fora portion of the branching spray of 
a tree, or fora dead lifeless twig—appearances which seem to be in- 
tended to deceive their natural enemies. The rich and velvet tints 
even-of the plumage of birds are not superior to what the curious 
observer may discover in a variety of moths; and those irridescent 
eyes which deck so gloriously the peacocks’ tail, are successfully 
imitated in the wings of one of our most common butterflies. 
In variety, indeed, insects certainly exceed any other class of 
animals. Nature, in her sportive mood, when painting them, some- 
times imitates the clouds of heaven, at others the meandering course 
of the rivers of the earth, or the undulation of the waters. Many 
have the semblance of a robe of the finest net- work thrown over them; 
some have fins like those of fishes, or a beak resembling that of birds; 
to others horns are given ; the bull, the stag, the rhinoceros, and even 
the hitherto vainly sought for unicorn, have in this respect many re- 
presentatives among insects. It would, indeed, be endless to produce 
all the instances which occur of such imitations; but it may be added, 
that their arms and members, generally speaking, far exceed in struc- 
ture and finishing those which they resemble. 
Some of the preceding descriptions and comparisons may appear 
exaggerated and hyperbolical to such of our readers as have taken little 
notice of our native insects; nor can Britain boast of examples to 
bear us out in all that has now been said. Still, we are profusely 
rich in many of the tribes—to an extent, indeed, which the uninitiated 
might, with some colour of reason, refuse to credit. But whoever 
begins the study of entomology, will be utterly astonished, at every 
step, that he had so long overlooked the countless variety and beauty 
of our native specimens, many of which have wings 
‘With silver fringed, and freckled o’er with gold.” 
Let us now consider some of the real advantages to be derived from 
the study of entomology. And here it may be proper, first of all, to 
weigh the burden of the objections urged by its impugners. They 
say it tends to withdraw the mind from subjects of higher moment ; 
that it cramps and narrows the range of thought; that it destroys, or 
at least weakens, the finer processes of the imagination and fancy ; and 
that it must be hostile to every thing like knowledge which leads to 
practical results, All this might be feasible enough, were it the fact 
