DIRECT BENEFITS FKOM MOTHS. U'J 



encouragement from precedent to make a meal of 

 tlie caterpillars whicli infest our cabbages and cauli- 

 flowers. Amongst the delicacies of a Boshies-man's 

 taljle, Spawman reckons those caterpillars from 

 which butterflies proceed.* The Chinese, who 

 waste nothing, after they have unwound the silk 

 from the cocoons of the silkworm, send the chry- 

 salis to table ; they also eat the larva of a Sphinx,t 

 some of which tribe, I)r Darwin tells us, are in his 

 opinion very delicious ;J and, lastly, the natives of 

 New Holland eat the cateijillars of a species of 

 moth of a singular new genus, to which Alexander 

 M'Lcay, Esq. (the colonial secretarj', and an emi- 

 nent naturalist,) has assigned characters, and, from 

 the circumstance of its larva coming out only in the 

 night to feed, has called it Ni/cterobius. 



A feast of insects is ingeniously described in 

 Henick's Ilesperides, in the following stanzas, as 

 having been enjoyed by Oberon and his queen 

 Titania. 



obkron's feast. 



Sliaprot ! to tliec the fixiry state 

 I with discretion dedicate ; 

 Because thou prizcst tltinga th;it ar« 

 Curious and unfamiliar. 



* Sparrhan, i. 201. 



•f* Sin G. Staunton's VoyngPy iii. 246, 



+ Phylologin, 364. 



