grand law of insect life—you must make an
intimate acquaintance with the creatures
themselves.

One of the greatest misfortunes in this
world is to lie under a wrongful imputation.
Many are the victims whose success has thus
been paralysed by calumny, misunderstanding,
or even by accidental mal-a-propos. Give a
dog a bad name, and hang him. The same
thing happens in the world of moths. The
human public reasous thus: Some moths eat
clothes, therefore all moths are to be
exterminated. The minor proposition is made to
contain the major. I have seen people
assassinate the gamma-moth (so called because its
wings bear the mark of a Greek letter ?), and
the great goat-moth, whose caterpillar lives
in decayed willow-trees, in revenge for an
imagined attack on a Sunday coat.  "Oh!
what a big moth!" shout the anti-
lepidopterous rioters. "Down with him! Kill him!
No moth! No moth! If little moths make
holes in my pantaloons, this one is capable of
eating them up at a meal." Whereas, he may
be as innocent of devouring cloth as a
codfish is of swallowing iced champagne. He
may even be a dress-producer, a veritable
working silkworm moth, who has already
done his duty in his time, for what his furious
persecutors know. Moreover, it is not the
shape of moths, but of caterpillars, that
clothes-moths commit their ravages. An
actual offender (Tinea pellionella), a very Jew
of moths, to be found throughout all the
stages of his existence amongst "old clo',"
is a brown is a brown-complexioned fellow, once a
caterpillar with a moveable case, who nourished
himself then in some dark closet, where he
made a living out of unused garments, and a
house which he carried about with him.
Unlike many a Christian, he provides well
for his children, by depositing his eggs in the
land of plenty, and thus taking forethought
for their maintenance and bringiug-up.
Another guilty culprit is Tinea biselliella, a
sleek, yellow-plush gentleman, who sidles
away as you look at him. He spends his
time, from youth to maturity, if not under
the ermine, yet in as near an approach to it
as circumstances permit. He has a dear
liking for furs of all sorts; and when he
comes out at last in his robes of state, no one
would believe how much dirty work had been
necessary to procure him all this finery.

After drawing the line between innocent
and malefactor moths, let us add a word of
extenuation in favour of cockroaches. As
people keep cats to clear their houses of
mice; as hedgehogs are converted into
domestic pets, that they may munch up the
black-beetles that swarm by night; so, sometimes,
it may be expedient to keep cockroaches,
that they may indulge their instinct
of exterminating a still greater nuisance than
themselves; namely, bugs. Webster's Voyage
of the Chanticleer informs us that
cockroaches are plentiful at Saint Helena.
Previous to the ship's arrival there, the crew
had suffered great inconvenience from bugs;
but the cockroaches no sooner made their
appearance, than the bugs entirely
disappeared. The cockroach preys upon them,
leaving no sign or vestige where they have
been; and is, so far, a most valuable and
praiseworthy insect. Mr. Newman also
acquaints the Entomological Society with the
same fact (discovered in a London boarding-
house), that the cockroach seeks with diligence,
and devours with great gusto, the
common bed-bug. He is confident of his
informer's veracity, but discreetly refrains
from mentioning names or places.

Although we may fancy butterflies and
sphinx-moths to be the gayest creatures in
existence, it is nevertheless true, that the private
lives of certain lepidoptera are troubled
by secret sorrows which a casual looker-on
would hardly suspect. One of their insidious
enemies is a plant! Herbivorous animals are
well known, and are supposed to fall in
conveniently with the natural order of things;
a less obvious idea is, that there exist, in
revenge, carnivorous vegetables. The larva
of a hawk-moth, Hepialus virescens, is preyed
on by the caterpillar-fungus, Sphæria
Robertsii. The caterpillar buries itself in the
earth, to undergo transformation into the
perfect insect; while it is lying dormant
there, the fungus inserts a root into the nape
of its neck, feeds and flourishes on the animal
matter, and, without destroying the form of
the victim, at last converts it into a mummy.
A similar slaughter of larvæ is performed in
Van Diemen's Land by a representative
fungus, the Sphæria Gunnii; and another,
Sphæria Sineusis, carries on the same work in
China; while the S. entomorhiza tries it
even in these parts, so far removed from
cannibalism. Living wasps have been taken
in the West Indies with a fungus growing
from their bodies. Still, animal-feeders are
not common among plants, unless we include
those orchidaceous flowers which exasperating
cultivators assert to live entirely on hair.
Talking of hair, the skin disease by which
our locks are shorn, is believed to be of
fungous origin. In unfavourable seasons,
silkworm caterpillars are destroyed by
myriads from the ravages of a minute cryptogamic
plant, or mould-fungus, which takes a
fancy to grow on their outer integument.

Is everything that crawls a VERMIN, deserving
only to be crushed underfoot? Mr.
Douglas's report of insect-doings would lead
us to respite many humble victims, and at
least amuse ourselves for a while with their
drolleries, before carrying the sentence of
death into execution. The students at our
Inns of Court eat their way onward, and
advance to their adult professional state by
dining in Hall; so do moths. The larvæ
of the pretty little Exapate gelatella are
internal feeders, living principally IN the
decayed branches of white-thorn, and, in a