The YOBHQ HATtfBAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 65. MAY, 1885. Vol. 6. 



THE ENTOMOLOGICAL YEAR. 



By ALBERT H. WATERS, B.A. 



MAY. 



/^HEER up, ye sad ! awake, ye dreamers ! sloth and sorrow put away, 

 ^-^ For Summer bright is coming : hark to her herald May ! 



As with hawthorn branches waving, he calls aloud " Give ear ! 



The sovereign of the seasons all 

 Is coming. Listen to her call 

 And greet her gladly, great and small, 

 The Queen of all the year ! " 



The flowerets hear the summons down in their lowly beds, 

 And blushing like the morning sun lift up their modest heads, 

 The trees array, in richest green, their branches old and sere, 

 Her deepest tint assumes the sky 

 And every fragile fluttering fly 

 With rainbow's splendid colours vie, 

 To welcome Summer dear. — Anon. 



There is but little need to descant on the pleasures of a country walk on a 

 bright May morning. When the birds are singing merrily, cheering with 

 sweet love-songs the hearts of their little wives, now engaged in tedious 

 "household affairs." When the hawthorn hedges are covered with their 

 snowy blossoms, and beautiful butterflies, looking indeed like " living flowers," 

 are disporting themselves in the warm sunshine. My readers can, of course, 

 imagine it all, and it is unnecessary to more minutely depict it. 



" Is there a heart that beats and lives 

 „ To which no joy the spring-time gives," 



asks good old Bishop Mant, and we can but re-echo his question. 



The work of the student of insect life is fast increasing, and space will not 

 admit of describing more than a portion of it. No matter what order he 

 takes up there is plenty of employment in it for his brains, eyes, and hands. 



I am compelled to devote this chapter entirely to Lepidoptera, as I have 

 so much to say about them. 



