4648 Insects. 



off all he casts his unpitying and unnatural eye upon. The same 

 rule applies, with some modifications, to insects. You or I, A or B, 

 being persons of known respectability, and having won the keeper's 

 heart by taking an interest in his young pheasants, and perchance 

 affording him a practical hint or two on their management, are allowed 

 to roam about and wander at will in Lord C's or Sir Harry D's woods, 

 which are an easy walk from your house. After a due course of colds, 

 caught by leaving your windows open at night, and of treacle and 

 rum (not for the colds !) a " carefully compiled local list" appears in 

 the * Zoologist.' I may here remark, that India-rubber shoes and a 

 dark lanthorn carry supernatural terror to the guilty consciences of 

 night-prowlers, who, I'll venture to say, don't forget the first fright so 

 as soon to invite a second. The story of course runs that ghosts of 

 murdered people are to be met with o' nights in the woods, and the 

 startling cry of the puckeridge is soon translated into the scream of a 

 punished spirit. You thus prove no mean ally to the keepers. 



Well, after acting " Jack-o'-Lanthorn" for some time, the list 

 appears. If it be sufficiently tempting, the next spriug sees the 

 arrival of some " Mr. E " or " Mr. F," professionally retained to collect 

 insects for the a silver-net" naturalists, and may be with a private order 

 in his pocket from some oologist in Leadenhall Market. The historical 

 result in the experience of the keepers is, " that there were more barren 

 hen pheasants that year as the man went about with a green net than 

 any other year they remember." I do not wish here to condemn the 

 entire practice of collecting by proxy ; but, as we occasionally read 

 complaints of such and such woods and parks being forbidden to col- 

 lectors, through the so-called " illiberality of landed proprietors," I 

 wish to show that such proceedings are often not so harsh and ill- 

 natured as they might at first sight appear to be ; and I would say to 

 such cavillers, " audi alteram partem." 



A friend of mine, who was at Spa last summer, tells me he chanced 

 to ask a lacquais-de -place whether there was any game in the country. 

 The man triumphantly (as if his strong point had been unwittingly 

 touched upon) pointed to a neighbouring hill, and said that on that 

 very hill, that very season, a gray hen had hatched out a brood. The 

 gentleman sighed on thinking of the different view taken of the rights 

 of property in his own degenerate neighbourhood, and wondered how 

 long a pheasant's nest in Hants would remain intact after becoming the 

 talk of the parish. Mere, apparently, the whole population rejoiced with 

 their neighbour, and took a pride in his good fortune. The guide, 

 gathering his thoughts from his disjecta verba, added " But M'sieu 



