Having complied with the old adage, "First catch your hare," the next point naturally is--how to cook it. So, having caught our butterfly, what are we to do with him?--a question that generally resolves itself firstly into
This truculent sentence may, I fear, look like a blot on the page to some tender-hearted reader, and, in truth, this killing business is the one shadow on the otherwise sunshiny picture, which we would all gladly leave out, were it possible to preserve a butterfly's beauty alive; but this cannot be done, and yet we have made up our minds to possess that beauty--to collect butterflies, in short; there is but one way for it, and so a butterfly's pleasure must be shortened for a few { 50} days, to add to our pleasure and instruction, perhaps for years after.
In the time of the great Ray, in such mean repute was the science of entomology held, mainly, I believe, on account of the _small size_ of its objects, that an action at law was brought to set aside the will of an estimable woman, Lady Glanville, on the ground of _insanity_, the only symptom of which that they could bring forward in evidence was her _fondness for collecting insects_!
But this was some two centuries ago, and matters have greatly mended for the entomologist since then. Now he may collect butterflies, or other flies, as he pleases, without bringing down a commission "_de lunatico_" on his _head_, but still the goodness of his _heart_ is sometimes called in question, and he has to encounter the equally obnoxious charge of _cruelty_ to the objects of his admiration--that, too, from intelligent and worthy friends, whose good opinion he would most unwillingly forfeit.
He, therefore, is naturally most anxious that those friends should be led to share his own conviction, that the pursuit of entomology--the needful butterfly killing and all included--may be not only not cruel, but actually beneficent in theory and practice.
So I will briefly try to act as apologist for the "brotherhood of the net," myself included.
In the first place, I will state roundly my sincere belief that _insects cannot feel pain_. This is no special pleading, or "making the wish the father to the thought," { 51} but a conviction founded on an ample mass of evidence, on my own observations and experiments, and strengthened by analogical reasoning. I wish I had space to lay this evidence in full before the reader; but this being here impracticable, I will not damage the argument by taking a few links out of a chain of facts which depend on their close connexion with each other for their strength and value.