at the same time placing his net underneath
it, in order to catch any moth that may fall.
Some species are very fond of this trick;
others sit very unconcerned; and others,
again, fly off at the very first glance of the
bull's-eye. Once in the net, a moth is easily
transferred to a pill-box, where it will remain
quiet until the next morning. There are
some sorts, however, that will not put up
with solitary confinement so easily, and fret
themselves, that is, their plumage; so it is
better to pin and kill them at once. It is of
no avail to use sugar in the vicinity of
attractive flowers, such as those of sallow, lime,
or ivy. Wasps and bats also come, but not
to the collector's assistance. The former are
attracted by the sweets, the latter by the
moths; and you may see them go in before
you, and pick off a beauty that you would
not have lost for half-a-dozen sugar-loaves.
Armed with sugar as a spell, the collector
becomes a sorcerer, and summons to his presence
at his will the moths which, like spirits, lie
all around, invisible to mortal ken. To carve
your sweetheart's name on the trunk of a
tree is an old-fashioned piece of gallantry not
yet quite obsolete, nor without a certain effect
on the fair one; but if you are courting a
four-winged lady-love, stick by night on the
bark of your tree as many lumps of sugar
dipped in ale as there are letters in her
surname MOTH, and the chances are that she will
be captivated and captured by the bait.

We hear a deal of talk about good men
and women; pray what is a good insect?
Because, sometimes one of the Geometrinæ
will come to your lure, and occasionally a
food beetle. Not rarely, a good insect may
be seen sunning himself on the banks of
fences. The Camberwell Beauty and the
Purple Emperor are both, it seems, good
butterflies. The Captain Bold of Halifax has a
rival in the bolder butterfly, Thecla quercûs.
In July, you may see the females walking
about on the leaves of the oak-trees, sunning
themselves, while the males are fluttering in
attendance, or are pertinaciously holding a
tournament in honour of their high-born
dames. In these pugnacious encounters they
maul each other severely, and you can hardly
capture a male whose wings are free from
scratches and tears. It is a pity that some
sort of entomological police cannot compel
such quarrelsome butterflies to keep the
peace. The Tineinæ, not so named because
they are tiny, have also their characteristic
peculiarites. When basking on palings,
Argyresthia sits with her head downwards, as
in a posture of reverence; Gracilaria and
Ornix, on the contrary, hold up their
heads, bold and pert; Elachista looks as if
it tried to squeeze itself into the wood, and
Nepticula hugs a corner or crevice, and then,
as if not satisfied with its station, hurries off
to seek another, with a self-important swagger
truly ridiculous in such a little creature.
Owing to the variety of economy amongst
the larvæ of these tiny moths, there can be
no general rules laid down for finding them;
some are on the leaves, some roll up the leaves,
others mine in their substance; some are in
the flowers, others in the seeds; some are in
the stems, others are in the roots; some
wander about naked as when they were born,
others make garments neat and tidy, or rough
and grotesque. There is only one rule to be
observed—Search a plant all over, and at
different times of the year. You may not
find the species of which you were in quest;
but, then, you may discover another whose
economy is unknown; or, as already more
than once has happened, one not hitherto
even seen in the perfect state. Thus, if you
collect the dry flower-heads of wild marjoram
in spring, and put them in a box in-doors,
you will soon see what appear to be some of
the dry calyces of the flowers, separated from.
the mass and walking about. Each of these
contains a living larva of Gelechia subocellea,
which has made itself in the previous autumn
a portable dwelling out of two or three
of the flowers, in which it will remain until
the following July, when the perfect moth
will emerge. In their habitat among the dry
florets these cases can scarcely be distinguished
from them.

In addition to the obvious and unavoidable
difficulties which entomologists have to
encounter, they have to bear up against the
martyrdom of contempt which the
vulgarminded public inflicts upon them. They are
ignominiously nicknamed bug-hunters, and
are regarded as a species of lunatic at large.
But astronomers and chemists have been
equally despised. Galileo, Tycho Brahe,
Priestly, and even Davy, have been pitied in
their time, especially in the early part of their
career, as foolish enthusiasts, whose proper
place would be the madhouse, if they were
not harmless. To this day, Newton, though
looked up to as a philosopher by all, is looked
down upon as a madman by many. What was
the good, the crowd inquired, of stair-gazing
and pulling the elements to pieces? But
great good, and profit, and safety, and lofty
wisdom have been derived from studying the
structure of the heavens—that is, of the
universe—and from investigating the essential
nature of the crude materials which compose
our globe. It is not during its infancy
that a science displays its wealth and lavishes
its benefits. Entomology may have results
in store that we wot not of. Mr. Douglas is
persuaded that many things in the structure
and physiology of man that are obscure may
receive a light from the study of the anatomy
and reproduction of insects.

But how are you to fathom the mysteries
of insect economy, if you do not pursue and
familiarise yourself with insects?
Notwithstanding which, it is quite true, as our secretary
says, that society throws a wet blanket
over entomology in all its branches. Take
your water-net, and go to a pond or stream