32 



pass as things in a dream — satisfied with their beauty, and incurious. The Rev. J. Gr. 



Wood observes with reference to country people and insect life, — " It is a very singular 



fact that those who, living so much in the open field, would be supposed to have correct 



knowledge of natural phenomena, are really profoundly ignorant of facts that pass daily 



before their eyes." His words, when 1 read them, sent my thoughts back to my early 



years — to my school-boy life in the country, when, at any rate, every species of bird and 



its egg, that were there to be found, were familiar to me ; and I set myself to consider 



what kind of insects really attracted my attention then. I was amazed at their paucity. 



I knew nothing, in those days, of Entomology as a science — I was in the position of an 



ordinary observer having a general love for nature. But when an insect did make an 



impression on my mind that impression was a deep one ; and it is astonishing to me now 



how vividly I can recall the companions, the scenes, the circumstances connected with 



the creatures' appearance to me. Such early impressions are " as nails fastened bv the 



masters of assemblies " in a sure place, and many thing are suspended from them. 



Wordsworth, in his address to a butterfly, has expressed his experience of the strange 



power that an early attraction has of securing an association of ideas in the mind. 



He says, — 



" Stay near me — do not take thy flight ! 

 A little longer stay in sight ! 

 Much converse do I find in thee, 

 Historian of my infancy ! 

 Float near me : do not yet depart ! 

 Dead times revive in thee : 

 Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art ! 

 A solemn image to my heart, 

 My father's family ! 



Oh ! pleasant, pleasant wire the days, 

 The time, when in our childish plays, 

 My sister Emmeline and I 

 Together chased the butterfly ! 

 A very hunter did 1 rush 

 Upon the prey : — with leaps and springs 

 I followed on from brake to bush : 

 But she, God love her ! f ear'd to brush 

 The dust from off its wings." 



" How well one remembers the ' Long time ago ' with which so trivial a thing as the 

 capture of an insect, even though of no great rarity, is associated," says*the Rev. F. O. 

 Morris (British Butterflies, p. 89.) As early insect acquaintances I can only recall the 

 Common Blue, the Smalt Copper, the Speckled Wood, the Peacock Butterfly, the Six Spot 

 Burnet Moth, the Magpie Moth, the Tiger Moth, the Stag Beetle, the Devil's Coach-horse, 

 the Cock chafer, the Glow-worm. Four butterflies, three moths, and four beetles — not a 

 long list. And I suppose there are thousands who individually could not recall a greater 

 number, and who yet would acknowledge the force of Kate Kavanagh's words in 

 " Beatrice " — " We all have some secret communion with nature — some fine and subtle 

 link by which we are bound to the great mother.'" They have needed a friend to take 

 them by the hand, and to introduce them to the chanting world of insects. 



Even the poets) who sing of all lovely things, very seldom speak of the butterfly : 

 the bee is a greater favourite with them. In the works of that gentle priestess of nature, 

 Jean Ingelow, I can only find three allusions to our butterfly friends. In that delightful 

 poem " Divided,"' she says : — 



" Flusheth the rise with her purple favour, 

 Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring, 

 'Twixt the two brown butterflies waver, 

 Lightly settle and sleepily swing." 



In " Scholar and Carpenter," 



And I admired and took my part 

 With crowds of happy things the while : 



With open velvet butterflies 



That swung, and spread their peacock eyes, 



A.s if they cared no more to rise 

 From off their beds of chamomile." 



