446 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 13. 
most ordinary kinds of food, which, when it has existed 
a few weeks or months under this humble form, its 
appointed work being finished, passes into an inter¬ 
mediate state of seeming death, when it is wound up in 
a kind of shroud, and encased in a coffin, and is most 
commonly buried under the earth, (though sometimes 
its sepulchre is in the water, and at others in various 
substances in the air,) and after this creature and others 
of its tribe have remained their destined time in this 
death-like state, to behold earth, air, and wator, give up 
their several prisoners: to survey them, when, called by 
the warmth of the solar beam, they burst from their 
sepulchres, cast off their cerements, from this state of 
torpid inactivity, come forth, as a bride out of her 
chamber,—to survey them, I say, arrayed in their 
nuptial glory, prepared to enjoy a new and more exalted 
condition of life, in which all their powers are developed, 
and they are arrived at the perfection of their nature: 
when no longer confined to the earth they can traverse 
the fields of air, their food is the nectar of flowers, and 
love begins his blissful reign ;—who that witnesses this 
interesting scene can help seeing in it a lively represent¬ 
ation of man in his threefold state of existence, and 
more especially of that happy day, when at the call of 
the great Sun of Righteousness, all that are in the 
graves shall come forth ; the sea shall give up her dead, 
and death being swallowed up of life, the nations of 
the blessed shall live and love to the ages of eternity?” 
Entomology is especially useful to the gardener, and 
it is not too sanguine an expectation, that when it be¬ 
comes more generally studied, and, as a consequence, 
the times and places where the iuseots which prey upon 
our crops undergo their transformations are better 
known, the cultivator will be able more readily to escape 
from their attacks. The gardener will then know how 
to assail them, so as most effectually to prevent their 
inroads. Let one instance suffice. 
The timber in the dock-yards of Sweden was annually 
injured to a great amount by some insect, and Linnaeus 
was directed to trace out, and, if possible, circumvent 
the marauder. He discovered it to be the maggot of 
a beetle, Lymexylon navale, and by directing the timber 
to be put under water during the timo that insect is de¬ 
positing its eggs, and during the time it is undergoing 
its changes of form, the timber is effectually preserved 
from its attacks. 
Turning our attention, however, exclusively to Butter¬ 
flies, the subject of Mr. Westwood’s volume, we find 
there are seventy species natives of Great Britain, every 
one of which species gives birth to millions of cater¬ 
pillars annually, and all feeding upon some kind of 
plant. The Cabbageworts are especially subject to the 
devastations of the caterpillars of the different species 
Pieris. The Apple* and the Hawthorn are rendered 
leafless by a species of the same genus, Pieris cratmyi; 
and the pages of the volume before us show how many 
of our flowers and shrubs are the victims of other 
species. To acquire a knowledge of the habits only of 
these, would yield a large harvest of benefit, as woll as 
of most gratifying employment, for it is quite true, that 
“ to follow only the insects that frequent one's own 
garden, from their first to their last state, and to trace 
all their proceedings, would supply an interesting amuse¬ 
ment for the remainder of life.” 
Weight is an all-important feature in the prize 
Goose, and the principle of uniformity of plumage has 
here been acted on with greater latitude than in the 
case of fowls. Considering, however, that a combination 
of all points of merit should be aimed at in every branch 
of our Poultry Exhibitions, we welcome with much 
satisfaction the Birmingham rule of the present year, 
which divides the previously-common class for Geese 
into two,—one for Grey and Mottled ; the other for 
White. This should determine the question, aud 
henceforward uniformity of plumage should be insisted 
on with these birds. 
The same relation as to form in which the square- 
built Dorking or the Shanghae stand with rospect to 
the mongrel barn-door fowl, should good specimens of 
the domestic Goose occupy towards the ordinary speci¬ 
men of their family. Low on the leg, with the fullest 
development of breast, the distinctions of their several 
varieties being duly preserved, the number of pounds 
at which they weigh down the scale will then determine 
the .1 edges' awards. 
Among the Grey Geese, the Toulouse deservedly 
stand first. The clear orange-red of their bills, of the 
orbit of the eye, and of theirlegs, and the peculiar flatness 
of the forehead, constituting distinctive points which 
readily separates them from the common specimens of 
this colour found in our farmyards. Their superiority 
in respect to shape is another characteristic of this 
valuable variety. Deep tones of rich brown should 
form the plumage of the prize birds of this race; white 
being only found on the under-part of the body, the tail 
coverts, and the extremities of the tail feathers. 
The White Geese are not, in our opinion, divisible 
into any distinct races; those termed Embden aud 
Improved Irish being simply the produce of birds care¬ 
fully selected on account of size. To this statement 
one exception may, perhaps, be taken as to the peculiar 
blue of the iris in the Etnbden, which is observable in 
the young goslings, and continues ever afterwards. 
The Mottled and Saddle-baclced birds that have of late 
been exhibited, being, in very many instances, the 
result of crosses between the White and Toulouse, have 
attained great weight. Presuming, however, form and 
weight to be equal, we should give the preference over 
these to the Grey or White. 
The China Goose is a rare claimant of honours at our 
exhibitions, aud is certainly specifically distinct from all 
the foregoing. They are found in at least three sub¬ 
varieties— Red-legged and Black-legged, Brown, and the 
White. The plumage of the two first should be shades 
of brown; their characteristics being a dark stripe of 
the same colour down the back of the neck, the dark 
knob at the base of the upper mandible, and the folded 
