They speak through the rare attractions with which they are invested,--through the wing, the flight, the airy existence,--through the fancy which possesses them (says good Du Tertre) of becoming birds. They speak through their brilliant hieroglyphics of colours and fantastic designs, their strange coquetry of extraordinary toilets. They speak in their very lustre, and some species reveal their inner flame by a visible torch. [Illustration] They lavish with royal magnificence their last days. And wherefore should they economize, when to-morrow they die? Break forth then, O life of splendour! Sparkle, ye gold and emeralds, and sapphires and rubies! And let that incandescent ardour, that torrent of existence, that cataract of profuse radiance, be poured out in one common, rapid flood! There is not space in our museums for the proper display of the prodigious, the unbounded variety of decoration with which Nature has, mother-like, sought to glorify the hymeneal of the insect and to emparadise its nuptials. A distinguished amateur having had the patience to show me in due succession genus after genus, species after species, the whole of his immense collection, I was astounded--in truth, I was stupefied--almost terrified by the inexhaustible energy--I was going to say fury--of invention which Nature displayed. I was overcome--I closed my eyes, and begged for a truce; my brain was dizzied and blinded, and became confused. But she, she would not let me go; she inundated and overwhelmed me with beautiful beings, with fantastic beings, with admirable monsters, with wings of fire, and cuirasses of emerald, clad in a hundred kinds of enamel, armed with singular apparatus--no less brilliant than formidable; some in embrowned steel, shot with yellow--others in silken hoods, embroidered with black velvet; these with fine dashes of tawny silk on a rich mahogany ground; those in pomegranate-coloured velvet lit up with gold; others in luminous, indescribable azures, relieved by jet-black beads; and others, again, bright in metallic streaks alternating with heavy velvet. It was as if they wished to say:-- "We in ourselves are the whole of Nature. If she perishes, we shall enact a drama, and personate all her creations. For if you look for rich furry garb, behold us here in mantles such as a Russian czarina never wore. Do you wish for feathers? behold us radiant in plumage which the humming-bird cannot equal; or if you prefer leaves, we can imitate them so as to deceive your eye. Even wood--in fact, all kinds of substances--there is nothing which we cannot imitate. Take, I pray you, this little twig, and hold it in your hand,--it is an insect!" Then I was fairly conquered. I made a humble reverence to a people so redoubtable; with a burning brain I issued from the magic cave; and for a long time afterwards the sparkling scintillating masks danced and whirled around me, pursuing me, and maintaining on my retina their wild, strange revel.