British insects; a familiar description of the form, structure, habits and transformations of insects

Preface

This little work is planned on the supposition that the reader knows nothing scientifically of the Insect World, but that he has exercised some degree of observation on such common species as must have come before him. From this it is attempted to lead him on to a general idea of the Structure and Classification of Insects.

The main endeavour of the writer has been to induce the student to keep ahead of the hook , which a small amount of pains in examining the very common insects chiefly described will enable him to do.

Thus, for example, after readiug the first four chap¬ ters, and comparing the insects described in them with the Table of Orders (p. 60), he will find that by the time he requires the more particular tables of characters which follow the various orders, he will already be familiar with most of the characters used, and will require guidance only as to their application.

As few technical terms as possible have been em¬ ployed, and, where practicable, English names have been used for the species described. This, however, is always a difficulty, from the utter absence of precision in the application of popular names ; the most dissimilar insects frequently sharing one name, while one insect may be endowed with half-a-dozen “aliases” in the same county; and each one of these is the right name, and the only name, to him who employs it.

VI

PREFACE.

For instance —

“ Jan. What’s got there, you ?

Will. A blastnashun Straddlebob craalun about in the nammut bag.

Jan. Straddlebob ! Where dedst leyarn to caal'n by that neyam ?

Will. Why, what should e caal’n ? — tes the right neyam, esn ut ?

Jan. Eight neyam, no ! Why ye gurt zote vool, casn’t zee tes a Dumbledore ?

Will. I know tes ; but vur aal that Straddlebob’s zo right a neyam vorn as Dumbledore ez.

Jan. Come, I’ll be deyand if I doan’t laay thee a quart o’ that.

Will. Done ! and I’ll ax meyastur to-night when I

*****

Will. I zay, Jan ! I axed meyastur about that are, last night.

Jan. Well ! what did ur zay ?

Will. Why, a zed one neyam ez jest zo vittum vorn as tother ; and he louz a ben caald Straddlebob ever zunce the island was vust meyad.”* *

There is a story of a young preacher who, feeling for an opinion on his sermon, elicited the compliment, “ It was short.” “ Yes,” replied the gratified orator, “ I wished to avoid being tedious.” “But you were tedious !”

The writer of the present work earnestly hopes that the attempt to be popular, yet without scientific inac¬ curacy, may not result in a verdict of — “ Slovenly— but

* Specimen of Isle of Wight dialect from Halliwell, in Latham’s “ History of the English Language.”

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

Introduction ........... 1

I. The Distinguishing Characters of Insects . 14

Section I. — Pentamera. A dephaga

Fig. 1. Cicindela campestris ( Tiger Beetle)

„ 2. Carabus violaceus .

Hydradephaga.

„ 3. Acilius sulcatus $ .

„ 4. Gyrinus natator ( Whirligig Beetle) .

Necrophaga.

„ 5. Silpha quadripunctata ( Burying Beetle ) .

Brachelytra.

„ 6. Goerius oleus (DmTs Coach-horse)

PAGE

PLATE II.

COLEOPTERA — {continued).

Pentamera — ( continued ).

Clavicornes.

Fig. 1. Byrrhus pilula {Pill Beetle). 1, a. Profile of

Lamelli comes.

,, 2. Geotrupes stercorarius {Common Dung Beetle ,

or Dumbledor) . . . . . .78

„ . 3. Melolontha vulgaris £ {Cockchafer) . . 79

Macrosterni.

„ 4. Elater (Athoiis) vittatus {Skipjack) . . 80

Aprosterni.

,, 5. Lampyris noctiluca $ {Glowworm), male.

5, a. Profile of head . . . . .81

„ 6. Ditto ditto female . . 81

X DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE III.

COLEOPTER A — ( continued ) .

Pentamera — ( continued ).

Aprosterni — (continued).

Fig. 1. Telephorus fusca ( Sailor ) ....

„ 2. Anobium striatum ( Death-watch ) .

Section II.— Hetekomera. Trachelia

,, 3. Pyrocbroa rubens ( Cardinal Beetle )

,, 4. Meloe proscarabasus ( Oil Beetle )

Section III. — Tetramera. Bhyncophora

„ 5. Phyllobius argentatus ( Weevil). 5, a. Profile

of bead . . ...

Longicornes .

„ 6. Clytus arietis ( W asp Beetle) .

PLATE IV.

EUPLEXOPTERA.

Fig. 1. Forficula auricularia ( Earwig ), with wings expanded ...

ORTHOPTERA.

„ 2. Blatta lapponica ( Small Cockroach)

„ 3. Acheta domestica ( House Cricket ) .

,, 4. Pbasgonura (Gryllus) viridissima ( Great Green

Grasshopper) ......

„ 5. Locusta flavipes ......

THYSANOPTERA.

,, 6. Pbselotbrips cerealis ( Thrips ) . „

PAGE

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

XI

PLATE Y.

NEUROPTERA.

PAGE

Fig. 1. Ephemera vulgata ( Mayfly ) . . . .135

„ 2. Panorpa communis $ (Scorpion-fly) . .140

,, 3. Hemerobius perla (Lacefly) . . . .139

„ 4. Sialis lutaria . . . . .140

„ 5. Iiaphidia ophiopsis (Snake fly) . . .141

TRICHOPTERA.

,, 6. Phryganea grandis (Caddis-fly or Water-moth) 146

PLATE YI.

1IYMENOPTERA.

Section I. — Terebrantia. Serrifera

Fig. 1. Tenthredo zonata (Sawfly) . . . .158

Terebellifera.

„ 2. Sirex Gigas ( Woodhorer ), less than natural size 168

Spiculifera .

,, 3. Cynips lignicola (now Kollari) ( Gallfly ) . 177

„ 4. Ophion luteus (Yellow Ophion ). 4, a. Side

„ 5. Chalcis flavipes . . . . . .182

Tubulifera.

„ 6. Chrysis ignita (Ruby -tail) . . . .184

PLATE VII.

HYMENOPTERA — {continued).

Section II. — Aculeata. Heterogyna (Ants)

Fig. 1. Formica flava (Yellow A nt) .... 188

,, 2. Mutilla Europlea (Solitary Ant) . . . 201

O CO

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE VII. — ( continued ).

Fossores ( Sand and Wood-wasps).

3. Pompilus exaltatus .

4. Ammophila sabulosa . . . .

. Tachytes pompiliformis .

. Mellinus arvensis. 6, a. Head of ditto, profile

PLATE VIII.

HYMENOPTERA— [continued).

Aculeata — ( continued ).

Fossores — ( continued ) .

1. Crabro vagus ......

2. Pemphredon lugubris . . . . .

Diploptera ( True Wasps).

3. Eumenes coarctata ( Solitary Wasp)

4. Odynerus antilope ( Solitary Wasp)

5. Vespa vulgaris ( Common Wasp) (Social).

5, a. Face of ditto . . . . .

6. Vespa Norvegica (Social Wasp) . 6, a. Face

of ditto .......

PLATE IX.

HYMENOPTERA — (continued).

Aculeata — (continued) .

Andrenidce (Sliort-tongued Bees).

1. Sphecodes rufescens .

2. Halictus morio $ .

3. Andrena fulva ^ .

Apidce (Long-tongued Bees).

4. Nomada sexfasciata 9 .

5. Osmia. bicornis $ .

6. Bombus terrestris 9

PAGE

215 220

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE X.

LEPIDOPTERA.

Section I. — Rhopalocera.

Fig. 1. Gonepteryx rhamni $ ( Sulphur Butterfly)

„ 2. Hipparchia janira 9 (Meadow -brown Butterfly)

„ 3. Polyommatus alexis \$ (Common Blue Butterfly)

Section II. — Heterocera.

Sphingina .

,, 4. Chgerocampa porcellas (Small Elephant Hawk-

Bombycina.

,, 5. Pygsera bucephala (Buff-tipped Moth)

Noctuina.

,, 6. Gonoptera libatrix .....

PLATE XI.

LE PI DOPTE R A — ( continued ) .

Heterocera — (continued) »

Geometrina.

(Not represented here.)

Pyralidina.

Fig. 1. Botys urticata (Small Magpie Moth)

,, 2. Hypena proboscidalis (Snout Moth)

Tortricina.

„ 3. Xanthosetia zygsena .

Tineina.

„ 4. Cemiostoma laburnella .

Pterophorina.

,, 5. Pterophorus pentadactylns (Strawberry Plume

A lucitina.

6. Alucita polydactyla (Twenty-plume Moth)

TAGrE

270 272

7?

. 275

XIV

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

PLATE XII.

HOMOPTERA.

Section I. — Trimera.

PAGE

Fig.

Cicada anglica ......

Anthophora spumaria ( Cuckoo-spit Insect)

Cercopis sanguinolenta .....

Membracis cornuta. 4, a. Ditto, side view .

Section II. — Dimera.

Aphis Rosse ( Rose Aphis). 5, a. Side view,

natural size ......

Aleyrodes chelidonii. 6, a. Ditto, three times

natural size, to show position of wings .

PLATE XIII.

HETEROPTERA.

Section I.- — Hydrocorisa.

Fig.

Notonecta glauca {Water Boatman)

Nepa cinerea ( Water Scorpion )

Section II. — Aurocorisa.

Gerris paludum ......

jj

Capsus spissicornis .....

Lygaeus equestris .

Pentatoma rufipes .....

PLATE XIV.

DIPTERA.

Section I. — Proboscidea.

Nemocera.

Culicidce.

Fig. 1. Culex pipiens $ ( Common Gnat). 1, a. Head of ditto $ (antennae truncated). 1, A Ditto £ (antennae truncated) ..... 347

Bracliycera.

Stratiomidce.

,, 2. Stratiomys chameleon ( Soldier-fly ) . ’ . 354

,, 3. Sargus cuprarius. 3, a. Antenna . . . 354

Tabanidoe.

„ 4. Tabanus autumnalis {Horsefly). 4, a. Antenna 355

DESCRIPTION OF PLATES.

XV

PLATE XIY. — ( continued ).

Asihdce. page

Fig. 5. Asilus crabroniformis . . . . .356

Leptidce.

,, 6. Leptis Scolopacea. 6, a. Antenna . . 357

PLATE XV.

DIPTERA — {continued).

Proboscidea — ( continued ).

Brachycerci — ( continu ed) .

Bombylidce.

Empidce.

„ 2. Empis tessellata ...... 358

Syrphidce.

„ 3. Eristalis tenax ( Dronejly ) . . . 47, 360

„ 4.

Syrphus pyrastri. 4, a. Antenna .

* •

,, 5.

Melithneptus menastri .

• •

Conopidce.

» 6-

Conops rufipes ....

0 •

PLATE XYI.

DIPTERA — {continued).

Proboscidea — {continued).

Brachycera — {continued) .

Muscidce .

Fig. 1.

Bucentes genicnlatus

A •

„ 2.

Stomoxys calcitrans ( Stable-fly )

A •

,, 3.

Musca domestica {Housefly). 3 , a.

Antenna .

„ 4.

Sepsis cynipsea ....

A •

Qd strides.

V

(Estrus (or Cephalemyia) ovis

{Gadfly).

5, a. Antenna ....

• •

Section II. — Eproboscida:.

„ 6.

Melophagus ovinus ( Sheeptick)

LIST OF VIGNETTES.

Egyptian Hawk-headed Scarab^eus thrusting forward the Disk of the Sun.

From a Carved Stone in the British Museum. Page 63. Tithonous.

From an antique gem. Page 113.

Lion and Bee.

Roman Mithraical gem from the Gemmae Antiques of Agostino. Page 152.

Death’s Head Butterfly and Urn.*

From a Neo-Platonian gem, signifying the Immortality of the Soul. Page 255.

Or, Ephemera? signifying the shortness of life. See page 10, and note, page 136.

Deus Myiagrus (the God of Flies). See page 2, note.

ERRATA.

Page 38, title of cut, read “ Naucoris cimicoides.”

„ 103, the line “ Subsection I. — Adephaga,” should pre¬ cede the three lines above.

,, 115, last line, for “ Lapponia,” read “Lapponica.”

INSECTS.

Introduction

As the object of this work is, not to teach Entomology, but to lead the reader in the first steps towards that science, by increasing the interest with whicli he may be disposed to regard the tribe of insects, it may not be altogether out of place to devote a few pages to their connexion with the history and superstitions of past ages.

They are a small people, hut they have no small work to accomplish in the world. They are a small people, but they hold no inconsiderable place in the history of mankind. In our own day there are whole tracts of country where their dominion cannot be overthrown! by man, and from whence he is driven by them. There was a time when a mighty king was shaken in his purpose “ by reason of the swarm of flies,” and there was a time when nations bowed down before the Lord of Elies.

The worship of the Fly, or rather of the Ely-destroyer personified, is said to have commenced in Egypt. From Egypt the Caphtorim carried it into Palestine, and there we find their descendants, the Philistines of Ekron, worshipping the Fly-god under the name of Baal-zebub.*

* 2 Kings, i. 2.

B

INSECTS.

By the Phoenicians this worship was introduced into Tyre, Sidon, and Babylon, and from these three great centres of commerce and civilization it spread into other parts of the world.

In Greece the origin, according to tradition, of this worship was, that Hercules, being tormented during the Olympic rites by hosts of flies, offered a sacrifice to Zeus in order to be rid of them. The sacrifice was accepted, and the flies removed beyond the boundary of the River Alpheus. From this time the great Zeus was known at Olympia by the surname of ’ Atto/uvioc (Apomyius) — “ driving away the flies,” — and the annual sacrifice of a bull to Zeus Apomyius* at the Olympic games, is said to have been performed with the result of dispersing the hosts of flies, which were the torment of those rites ; whilst the Elians were unremitting in the like worship, by which they deprecated the infliction of those swarms of flies, which they believed to bring with them pestilence and disease. At the festival of Athena at Aliphera, the Hero Myiagrus, or Myioides (/uv'iaypog, that is, the fly-catcher) was invoked as the protector against flies.

The Romans also had their Deus Myiagrus, and into the Temple of Hercules, at Rome, flies were not permitted to enter.

Coming nearer to our own day, we read of the same or a similar worship as prevalent amongst the Hottentots, who adore “ as a benign deity, a certain insect, peculiar, it is said, to the Hottentot countries. This animal is of

* A representation of Zeus Apomyius, or the Deus Myiagrus, on an ancient gem, will be found figured at the head of the chapter on Diptera. The face of the god is given in the figure of the fly.

INTRODUCTION.

the dimensions of a child’s little finger, the back is green, and the belly speckled with white and red. It is pro¬ vided with two wings, and' on its head with two horns. To this little winged deity, whenever they set eyes on it, they render the highest tokens of veneration ; and if it honours a Kraal (a village) with a visit, the inhabitants assemble about it in transports of devotion, as if the Lord of the Universe was come among them. They sing and dance round it while it stays, troop after troop throwing to it the powder of Bachu, with which they cover at the same time the whole of the kraal, the tops of their cottages, and everything without doors. They likewise kill two fat sheep as a thank-offering for this high honour. It is impossible to drive out of a Hottentot’s head that the arrival of this insect to a kraal brings favour and prosperity to the inhabitants.”*

That this worship should have obtained so widely, will not seem wonderful, when we recal the historical evidences of the power of these little creatures, and re¬ member that under the polytheistic system of religion, not only were the beneficent powers of nature adored, but the agents prejudicial to man were personified, and became the objects of deprecation. Hence, it could hardly fail that creatures so powerful for evil as to be the means of devastating and rendering uninhabitable whole tracts of country, should find a place amongst the fear-inspiring gods of the heathen.

Thus, too, it may easily be conceived that while the Israelites of old were rejoicing over the messengers of their All-Powerful Protector, that plague, which took its

* Kolben’s “Present State of the Cape of Good Hope,” vol. i., quoted in Park hurst’s Greek Lexicon, under “Beelzebub.”

B 2

INSECTS.

rank amongst such miseries as pestilence, murrain, hail with fire, ancl bereavement, had to the Egyptians yet another horror added when in it they found their great deity subject to the bidding of the leader of their op¬ pressed slaves.

Very different from the place held by the fly is that occupied by a representative of another order of insects, namely, the Bee. Seldom, or perhaps never, actually the object of adoration, it finds its place in the symbolism and amongst the superstitions of all times and countries.

It is as

“ Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom”

that they are found amongst the hieroglyphs of Egypt, the symbol of royalty being, according to Horapolio, a reed (or sceptre) followed by a bee ; denoting the people obedient to a king.*

It may have been in the same sense that it was adopted as a badge by the ancient kings of France, as, for in¬ stance, by Childeric, on the opening of whose tomb in St. Denis, above 300 golden Bees, which had formed the decoration of his robe, were found ; whilst it is known that Louis XII. and Henri IV. sometimes used these emblems instead of fleurs de lys. Upon this it is con¬ jectured that the fleur de lys was a corruption of the

* Hence too perhaps arose the superstition prevalent among the Greeks and Romans that the sudden appearance of a swarm of bees was inauspi¬ cious and ominous of slavery. Virgil, in his 4th Georgic, says of them that —

“Not Egypt, India, Media, more "With servile awe their idol king adore.” — Dryden.

Mr. Sharpe, the great Egyptologist, denies that the bee and sceptre in the hieroglyphs conveyed this meaning.

INTRODUCTION.

figure of a bee, the three upper leaves representing the body and wings of a bee with the head downwards, while the lower parts of the leaves took the place of the head and legs, &c.

The Great Napoleon, who while changing the esta¬ blished order of things, never missed an opportunity of showing that he knew full well the value attaching to the prestige of antiquity, replaced the dishonoured jleur de lys by the imperial and more ancient badge of the bee; and his coronation robe, probably in imitation of that of Childeric, was “ seme” with golden bees.

As a symbol of plenty or fecundity, the bee, or its produce, occurs on all sides. The “ Land flowing with milk and honey” of the Bible, is the most familiar instance of this, and the combination is found else¬ where.

Thus in the Hindoo Mythology, in which Maya, the Mother of the World and of the Sea of Milk, or primi¬ tive matter, holds so high a place, we find the bee also bearing a part among the symbols of fecundity. Gama {Love), is represented as a child-god, supported on a quiver, from which issues Yotma (strength), under the form of a lion, the group resting on a bee. Yotma is also represented under the form of a compound being, with a head half bull half lion, the wings of an eagle and the body of a serpent. From the yawning mouth of this being proceeds another deity — Prakriti (goodness), in the form of a cow, accompanied by a swarm of bees. But there is one curious figure which exceeds these in interest. Maya, the Creatrix, holds her child, the infant God of Love, in her arms; behind him is his quiver, and in his hand a bow of sugar-cane strung with bees. Possibly the sting is the point of this figured

INSECTS.

epigram, which at least reminds us of the answer of Venus to young Love's complaint, —

“ Oh, mother, I am dead !

An ugly snake, they call a bee,

“ Venus with smiles replied, ‘Oh sir,

Does a bee’s sting make all this stir ?

Think what pains then attend those darts Wherewith thou still art wounding hearts,’ ” &c.

The great blue bee also appears in the Hindoo Mytho¬ logy, reposing on a lotus, and sacred to Vishnu, the second person (or preserver) of the Trimurrti, or Trinity.*

The bee is found on the coins of those parts of Greece in which the ancient and beneficent god Aristseus, son of Apollo and Gyrene, was worshipped. He taught men to keep bees, and the medals of Athens, of Ceos, and other places, bear this insect as his attri¬ bute. It occurs also on the coins of Ephesus, the city worshipping the great goddess of all fertility and abundance, whose symbol was a bee.

Again, the bee occurs in the representations of the mithraical worship of Persia, as afterwards adopted in Rome, where the principle of fertility or production is combined with that of strength, under the figure of a lion with a bee at the mouth, forcibly reminding us of the Hindoo use of the same symbols. A very beautiful ancient gem with this subject is figured by Agostino (Gemmce Antiques), in which, according to him, allusion is made to the riddle of Samson, “ Out of the strong came forth the sweet.”f

* For figures of the above Hindoo representations, see the “ Nouvelle Galerie Mythologique, par J. D. Guigniaut." Paris, 1850.

+ A. woodcut of this gem will be found at the head of the first chapter on Hymenoptera.

INTRODUCTION.

In Greece bees were recognised as omens of future eloquence, and the stories are well known of the swarm¬ ing of bees upon the lips of Pindar and of Plato, who—

“ Did shed

Sweet words like dropping honey.”

And the title of “ The Attic Bee” was bestowed upon Xenophon.*

Later, Antonius, a Greek monk (of the eighth ? twelfth ? century), who formed two Books of Sentences collected from the rich field of the writings of the early Christian Fathers, was surnamed “Melissa,” or the Bee; and Leo Allatius (keeper of the Vatican Library in the seventeenth century), gave to the illustrious men of his own time the collective name of Apes Urbance.

It is not easy to account for some of the modern super¬ stitions which attach to bees.

The county of Kent is rich in these ; there, if the bees swarm upon a dead tree, the result is a death in the family of their owner ; and so strong is the feeling upon this subject, that care is taken to avert such a misfortune by cutting down any dead tree before the time of the swarming of the bees. In the same county the intimate relation between the hive and the house¬ hold is also shown by a curious custom which prevails of waking up the bees by knocking on the hive, to tell them when a death occurs in the family. In Brittany (and in Cornwall ?) they tie a small piece of black stuff to the beehives at the time of a death, and a piece of red in the case of a marriage ; without this the bees would never thrive. In the district of Quimperle, if the hives

* Contrast with these our “ Wasp of Twickenham.’'

INSECTS.

have been robbed, the bee-keeper immediately gives them up, there being an old Breton proverb, “ No luck after the robber.”#

In Ireland, bees are considered “the luckiest things at all,” and an unfortunate house and unsuccessful dairy have been known to go right from the moment of the arrival of swarming bees.

These “smallest among fowls” have found a place even in heraldry. They were in the family arms of Urban VIII., in whose pontificate Allatius wrote his Apes Urbaruz, and in England “three bees volant, azure , on a ground, or,” are borne by the family of Bye ; formerly the Saxon, and still the Dutch name for the bee.

The Ant, an insect of the same order as that to which the bee belongs, is the subject of a curious superstition in Ceylon, which is quoted by Messrs. Kirby and Spence from Knox’s “ Ceylon.” There is a species of black ant there which “ bites desperately, as bad as if a man were burnt by a coal of fire ; but they are of a noble nature, and will not begin unless you disturb them. Formerly these ants went to ask a wife of the Noya, a venomous and noble kind of snake ; and because they had such a high spirit to dare to offer to be related to such a gene¬ rous creature, they had this virtue bestowed upon them that they should sting after this manner. And if they had obtained a wife of the Noya, they should have had the privilege to sting full as bad as he.”

Like the bee, the ant is present in representations of the god Mithras, and Plutarch tells that it was used in divination.

We will turn now from these tribes of ruling, ruled,

INTRODUCTION.

and provident creatures, with their much-lauded virtues, to the joyous, musical, sun-loving tribes of grasshoppers and cicadas — “ harmless creatures, nourished upon dews,” as was once fondly believed, and whose song is to the peasant a harbinger of fair weather and a plentiful harvest. And here again we will quote from the Introduction to Entomology —

" . . . . They were addressed by the most endearing epithets, and were regarded as all but divine. One bard entreats the shepherds to spare the innoxious tettix, that nightingale of the ny mphs, and to make those mischievous birds the thrush and blackbird their prey. ‘ Sweet pro¬ phet of the summer,’ says Anacreon, addressing this insect, 4 the Muses love thee, Phoebus himself loves thee, and has given thee a shrill song ; old age does not wear thee ; thou art wise, earth-born, musical, impassive, without blood : thou art almost like a god.’ ”

Our authors go on to suggest that the t£tti% of the Greeks must have been more musical than those of other countries, which have been “ execrated for the deafening din that they produce but there is as great variety in musical taste as in the quality of music, and among English poets we find one attributing the “ sweet music” of the woods to the chorus of lark, linnet, throstle, night¬ ingale, and grasshopper ; while another writes of" scream¬ ing grasshoppers,” which "fill everye eare with noyse.” That the cicada itself entertained little doubt of its musical powers was proved in a contest between Eunomus and Ariston at the Pythian games, when, one of the strings of the cithara of Eunomus being broken, a cicada perched upon the instrument, supplied the deficiency, and won the day for him.

We cannot, in a chapter devoted to such associations,

INSECTS.

pass from the grasshopper and his associates without one word of him whom “ only” —

“ Cruel immortality consumes

Who dwelt —

“ In presence of immortal youth,

Immortal age beside immortal youth.”1

Tithonous appears to have been seldom made the subject of representation in ancient art ; but there is a curious gem wdiich represents him “ undergoing his metamorphosis,” of which an engraving is placed at the head of the chapter on Orthoptera.*

To speak of the butterfly as connected with the super¬ stitions of past ages would be an injustice. It stands forward amongst the corrupted myths of the ancients, a beautiful example of pure symbolism, and Psyche (ipvxn) or the soul, is almost constantly, in the later periods of ancient art, to be recognised by her butterfly wings.

First, the grovelling life of this world — crawling and feeding upon the earth ; then the deathlike sleep — silent and motionless ; then the breaking forth free, beautiful, and winged — surely it is not wonderful that to the poetical Grecian mind, man, living, dead, immortal, was pictured here.

And thus we find it in a thousand representations. On the lips of Plato, preacher of the immortality of the soul, rests a butterfly;! and the symbol was introduced into early Christian Art by his descendants, the Neo-

* It will be observed that insects of two orders have here b een mixed, but though separated in science, as musicians they are closely connected, and it is sometimes not easy to ascertain to which animal some notices of the ancients, on this point, are to be referred.

+ Or sometimes butterfly’s wings are on his head.

INTRODUCTION.

Platonians, to whom is attributed an engraved gem in which a butterfly hovers over a death’s-head.*

Perhaps a more interesting series of examples of the application of this symbol could hardly be found than is presented by the bas-relief on a Roman sarcophagus, described by Maury, f in which are set forth the course of man’s destiny, his creation, the imparting to him a living soul ; his life and sufferings ; his death, or the parting of soul and body ; and the transportation of the disembodied spirit.

The subject begins with the creation of man, and the reader must be prepared for a little confusion, entailed by Prometheus bearing a double character as creator and as the prototype of man.

Prometheus is represented seated, holding the finished man, the work of his own hands, upon his knee. Before him stands Minerva, in the act of placing the Butterfly on the head of the newly-created (“ and man became a living soul”) ; whilst near this group are seen Terra (the Earth, from whence all men come), and Cupid and Psyche , who, embracing each other, set forth the union of soul and body. Above, the fates are busy ; Clotho winds the thread of man’s life upon a spindle, while Lachesis traces his horoscope upon a globe.

The next scene represents the sufferings of Prometheus (as man), and Deucalion and Pyrrha, types of the per¬ petuation of the race of mankind, are present ; but, whilst the race subsists, the individual passes away, and the next figure is of the lifeless body extended before Atropos, who sits with the book of destiny open, whilst Love, in

* Figured at the head of the chapter on Lepidoptera. + “ Nouvelle Galerie Mythologique.”

INSECTS.

the character of the Angel of Death, watches the butter¬ fly which is escaping from the body. Terra, present at the birth, is here present at the death, as if to take back to herself the mortal remains ; while Mercury, the soulbearer, is seen transporting the figure of Psyche, or the soul — a female, with butterfly’s wings — to the regions of the blest.

Amongst our own less observant and less poetical countrymen, we may perhaps refer the naming of these insects to a feeling of superstition, or a state of mind akin to that described by Bishop Taylor, when “every hush is a wild beast, and every shadow is a ghost, and every glowworm is a dead man’s candle, and every lantern is a spirit and accept Messrs. Kirby and Spence’s sug¬ gestion that it is from the old notion that the dead fly about at night in search of light, that in the north and west of England the nocturnal moths which flv into the candles are called sanies (souls), as in Germany they are “ ghosts while the Italians believe the fireflies to be spirits arisen from the graves, and avoid them in terror.