One summer afternoon I was visiting at the parsonage in a small New Forest village in this low district when my host introduced me to a friend of his the vicar of a neighbouring parish, remarking when he did so that I would be delighted to know him as he was a great naturalist. The gentleman smiled, and said he was not a "great naturalist," but only a "lepidopterist." Now it happened that just then I had a lovely picture in my mind, the vivid image of a humming-bird hawk-moth seen suspended on his misty wings among the tall flowers in the brilliant August sunshine. I had looked on it but a little while ago, and thought it one of the most beautiful things in nature; naturally on meeting a lepidopterist I told him what I had seen, and something of the feeling the sight had inspired in me. He {114} smiled again, and remarked that the season had not proved a very good one for the _Macroglossa stellatarum_. He had, so far, seen only three specimens; the first two he had easily secured, as he fortunately had his butterfly net when he saw them. But the third!--he hadn't his net then; he was visiting one of his old women, and was sitting in her garden behind the cottage talking to her when the moth suddenly made its appearance, and began sucking at the flowers within a yard of his chair. He knew that in a few moments it would be gone for ever, but fortunately from long practice, and a natural quickness and dexterity, he could take any insect that came within reach of his hand, however wild and swift it might be. "So!"--the parson lepidopterist explained, suddenly dashing out his arm, then slowly opening his closed hand to exhibit the imaginary insect he had captured. Well, he got the moth after all! And thus owing to his quickness and dexterity all three specimens had been secured. I, being no entomologist but only a simple person whose interest and pleasure in insect life the entomologist would regard as quite purposeless--I felt like a little boy who had been sharply rebuked or boxed on the ear. This same lepidopterist may be dead now, although a couple of summers ago he looked remarkably well and in the prime of life; but I see that someone else is now parson of his parish. I have not taken the pains to inquire; but, dead or alive, I cannot imagine him, in that beautiful country of the Future which he perhaps spoke about to the {115} old cottage woman--I cannot imagine him in white raiment, with a golden harp in his hand; for if here, in this country, he could see nothing in a hummingbird hawk-moth among the flowers in the sunshine but an object to be collected, what in the name of wonder will he have to harp about!