THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
39 
ever called Nepticulu anomalella passes 
my comprehension, but I suppose I am 
anomalous enough to such huge, dull 
creatures as your race. I saw, among 
other things, that you have enumerated 
the number of species in my family; 
why, you do not even know that they are 
species, and I am sure that you have not 
the half of the family, — nay, more, there 
are many species that, from their way of 
life, you never will know. 
Do not think I intend to abuse the 
Micro-Lepidopterists, as, in their horrid 
jargon, they call themselves; I only wish 
them to understand how little they know 
about my race, — you, personally, have 
doubtless done all you could under the 
circumstances. 
These thoughts have been inscribed by 
a larva on a rose-leaf, as plainly as he 
could, in the usual family characters, 
which no doubt you will call hiero- 
glyphics, but I trust that, for the good of 
your brethren, you will be able to trans- 
late, and put them on your leaf, in the 
clumsy form you term print. 
I am, Sir, 
Not yours, 
The uncaught Nepticula. 
ADDRESS TO THE NEPTICULA2. 
Who can divine the characters you trace 
On leaves of plants and trees ? How 
strange they are ! 
Mysterious symbols! language of a race 
Miuute, but brilliant as the evening 
star. 
Are these your epitaphs, which, e’er you 
sleep, 
You write in curious and fantastic 
forms ? 
Or memoirs of your lives, you, as you 
creep, 
Inscribe on leafy crypts, poor toiling 
worms ? 
The writing on the wall, the King of 
yore 
Perplex’d not more than yours on 
leaves laid bare ; 
Part of the hand we see as he before, — 
Who can interpret? Where the Daniel 
— where ? 
The cyphers here recorded plainly tell 
No human power designed your narrow 
mine : 
Tell us to whom at first by chance it 
fell 
To see the mazes of your tortuous 
line. 
Does Thibet’s wondrous tree owe all its 
fame 
To work of yours upon its fleshy 
leaves ? 
Are ye the reason of that giant, name — 
“Ten Thousand Images” — which to 
it cleaves ? 
Say, did the wandering Arabs learn to 
trace, — 
When Art was rude, and men knew 
not its powers, — 
From shapes invented by your tiny 
race, — 
Their figures quaint, of foliage, fruit 
and flowers? 
Or, looking backward, say might not the 
love 
That kept its watch upon the waters 
dark 
Have saved your type, and brought it by 
the dove, 
Upon the olive-brauch into the Ark? 
These are strange themes, but stranger 
still if man 
Should pass with heedless eye, and 
o’er your brood 
Nor spare a thought, nor try your lives 
to scan, 
When God Himself pronounced all 
“ very good.” 
