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cluced a much more lively recollection of our past feelings, and of the objects and 
events which caused them, than the most perfect description could have done ; and 
we have lingered a considerable time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming, if I 
may so express it, the departed state of our minds. How much there is in a thou¬ 
sand spots of the earth that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious individual.” 
It was on a summer evening, of early life, when little more than a child, in 
rambling through a wood on a holiday, my attention was drawn to a spray on 
which rested a Camberwell Beauty. I had never seen such perfection before. 
My eye rested on the rich dark velvety wings, fringed with ermine white, relieved 
by an inner border of metallic blue spots, like bracelets of lapis lazuli. At this 
moment I could mark the very spot in the forest where this vision was revealed, 
and well do I remember the thrill of delight with which I captured and carried off 
my prize in triumph, to exhibit before a little knot of schoolfellows. I can see 
their uplifted hands, I can hear their exclamations of surprise, as they beheld the 
splendid captive. I can recall their features and their forms as if now living, 
though every individual among them has long since been called away, and now 
possibly familiarized with greater things than it is permitted man’s philosophy to 
dream of here. But to me, trifling as this little incident may appear to many, the 
results through life have neither been unimportant, useless, or uninfluential; for it 
is to it I stand indebted for many a happy hour. That “ poor insect” awakened a 
taste which has never slumbered ; and the cultivation of natural history has been 
my solace in times and seasons, when the mind required something to fall back 
upon, apart from the business and pursuits of the world. It so happened that 
from the time I have alluded to until a few summers ago, in one of the mountain 
passes of the Pyrenees, I had never met with a single living specimen of Vanessa 
antiopa, when, on a lovely day, on a spray the very counterpart of that of the days 
of my childhood, I saw the expanded wings of this insect, and the days of “ auld 
lang syne,” which first introduced it to my notice, came across my mind vivid and 
clear as though but of yesterday. This summer, again (and not unfrequently) I 
fell in with this associate of early years. Children, indeed, may they be called of 
the sun. In the hot and sultry hours of noonday, they would flit by, rendering it 
almost impossible to watch their course ; if in these flights two or three met in the 
glade, they paused in their speed, and, fluttering together, so busied themselves in 
Their conflict of rivalry or affection, I know not which, that I more than once 
caught two at a time, and after admiring them, in gratitude for the benefit I had 
received at their hands, sent them forth once again to enjoy their summer revel¬ 
ries. At other times (I particularly recollect one occasion), in a wood on the sum¬ 
mit of the Drackenfels, when the wind was rather keen, I found numbers resting 
on the backs of trees, in a state of stupor ; they made no attempts to escape, and 
when thrown into the air their wings barely opened, or flapping feebly, eased their 
fall, or enabled them to seek repose on the stem of the nearest tree. 
