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INTRODUCTORY LETTER. | 6 
those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving 
their subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when it was 
alive ; others, again, in the veining and texture of their wings ; and others 
in the rich cottony down that clothes them. To such perfection, indeed, 
has nature in them carried her mimetic art, that you would declare, upon 
beholding some insects, that they had robbed the trees of their leaves to 
form for themselves artificial wings, so exactly do they resemble them in 
their form, substance, and vascular structure ; some representing green 
leaves, and others those that are dry and withered.1_ Nay, sometimes this 
mimicry is so exquisite, that you would mistake the whole insect for a por- 
tion of the branching spray of a tree.2 No mean beauty in some plants 
arises from the fluting and punctuation of their stems and leaves, and a 
similar ornament conspicuously distinguishes numerous insects, which also 
imitate with multiform variety, as may particularly be seen in the cater- 
pillars of many species of certain tribes of butterflies (Nymphalide), the 
spines and prickles which are given as a Noli me dangere armour to several 
vegetable productions. 
In fishes the lucid scales, of varied hue, that cover and defend them, are 
universally admired, and esteemed their peculiar ornament; but place a 
butterfly’s wing under a microscope, that avenue to unseen glories in new 
worlds, and you will discover that nature has endowed the most numerous 
of the insect tribes with the same privilege, multiplying in them the forms ®, 
and diversifying the colouring of this kind of clothing beyond all parallel. 
The rich and velvet tints of the plumage of birds are not superior to what 
the curious observer may discover in a variety of Lepidoptera, and those 
many-coloured eyes which deck so gloriously the peacock’s tail are imi- 
tated with success by one of our most common butterflies.* Feathers are 
thought to be peculiar to birds; but insects often imitate them in their 
antenne®, wings®, and even sometimes in the covering of their bodies.? 
We admire with reason the coats of quadrupeds, whether their skins be 
covered with pile, or wool, or fur; yet are not perhaps aware that a vast 
variety of insects are clothed with all these kinds of hair, but infinitely 
finer and more silky in texture, more brilliant and delicate in colour, and 
more variously shaded than what any other animals can pretend to. 
In variegation, insects certainly exceed every other class of animated 
beings. Nature, in her sportive mood, when painting them, sometimes 
imitates the clouds of heaven; at others, the meandering course of the 
rivers of the earth, or the undulations of their waters; many are veined 
like beautiful marbles; others have the semblance of a robe of the finest 
net-work thrown over them ; some she blazons with heraldic insignia, 
giving them to bear in fields sable— azure — vert —gules — argent and or, 
fesses — bars —bends — crosses— crescents—stars, andeven animals. On 
many, taking her rule and compasses, she draws with_precision mathema- 
tical figures; points, lines, angles, triangles®, squares, and circles. On 
1 Various species of the families Gryllide and Mantide, 
2 Many species of Phasmide. 
De Geer, I. t. 3, f. 1—34, &e, Audouin, Hist. Pyr. de la Vigne, Pl. 3. 
Vanessa Io. 
Culex, Chironomus, and other Tipulidae. 
Pierophorus. 
Muirs of many of the Apide. Mon, Ap. Aug. I. t. 10. **d. 1, f. 1,6. 
Plinus imperialis L. 
Trichius ( Archimedius K.) delta F. 
B3 
cer Seana 
