CHAPTER XV. 



OF THE REARING OF EXOTIC INSECTS FROM 

 IMPORTED EGGS OR CHRYSALIDES. 



T the time that I first published my work 

 *^L\ entitled " British Butterflies and 

 *\Z jP*T their Transformations," now many 

 '-C^ years ago, I suggested the pos- 

 sibility of rearing some of the most magni- 

 ficent of exotic insects in our hot-houses 

 and conservatories, and even, in some in- 

 stances, in the open air, with a view to their 

 permanent establishment in the country. 

 On turning to my former volume, I find the 

 following passage in the Preface : — " Though we 

 cannot transplant the flowers of the tropics to our 

 bleaker soil, it appears by no means so impossible 

 to naturalize some of their most splendid insects. 

 Their system of hybernation in the pupa-case, in 

 which state insects have been found to resist almost 

 any degree of cold without injury, forming a na- 

 tural means of shielding them from the effects of 



