This little (seratella) moth is of a brownish colour, with numerous black dots and stripes on the fore wings, which are beautifully fringed with feathers. The inferior wings are very small, and have also a fringe on the margin. This moth is particularly distinguished by the extreme length of the hind feet; they are twice as long as the body, and are thought by some to act like a pair of oars in regulating their flight, and in helping to maintain the body in equilibrium.
My aunt told me that some years ago the depredations of this insect were considered as a species of blight, and the insect was so little known, that no description of it was to be found in either French or English entomologies. She believes that every blight that affects our fruit-trees is produced by insects, whose visits are encouraged by certain dispositions of the atmosphere. The germs of the future race are lodged ready to be called into existence whenever the weather be favourable to them. The cure then must be to eradicate the germ, but this can only be known by tracing the habits of these minute creatures. “What a field,” added my aunt, “for exercising the industry and observation of young people; and not only in acquiring knowledge, but in turning that knowledge to useful purposes.”
24th.—We accompanied my aunt and uncle yesterday in a very pleasant expedition. We boated to Elmore early in the morning to breakfast with Mrs. Maude, and heard some very entertaining letters from her daughter, which she was so kind as to read to us.
Miss M. has been in town for three weeks, and the friends she is with have made great exertions to shew her every thing interesting. In the midst of all her hurry, however, she has written constantly home, describing all she does, and sees, and thinks, that can interest her father and mother. She was not very fond of early rising; but now, in order to prevent any thing from interfering with these letters, she has the resolution to get up and write them before her friends’ breakfast hour. She has almost excited my envy by her repeated visits to the British Museum—to galleries of beautiful paintings—to botanic gardens and stoves—to collections of beasts, and birds, and insects,—to tunnels and suspension-bridges, and to all sorts of curious machinery; and she has had the great advantage, too, of having seen all these things in company with people who could explain them to her. Alas! such things can be found only in London.
After we had heard these letters, we went on to Gloucester, where I had not yet been; and though it was not London, I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal that was quite new to me, and very interesting.
The pin manufactory we saw in every part, from the straightening the brass wire before it is cut into the proper lengths, to the last operation, by which the pins are whitened. But as Marianne will find all the particulars detailed in the Book of Trades, I will only say, that the thing which seemed to shew the most expert fingers, was the putting the pins into the heads, and riveting them by a slight blow on an anvil. This is done by children, who take the heads out of an iron pot in which they have been heated, and instantly pop the bits of wire into them; and the never-failing exactness with which it is done is really wonderful. My uncle afterwards told us that a patent has been lately obtained for a very ingenious improvement, by which the head is raised upon the wire itself, so that the whole pin consists of a single piece of brass.
The sticking the pins into the papers, which are folded and placed against the edge of the bench, is also very curious. And when I recollected the great variety of people who had been employed in preparing the materials from the time the metals were dug out of the mine till the wire was drawn, along with those whom I had just seen engaged in the different operations in this manufactory, I could not but feel astonished that one small article of female dress should cost such accumulated labour.
We then walked to the cathedral. What a magnificent building, mamma! the twelfth part of a mile in length, and more than two hundred feet high. As to the interior, it is grand beyond any thing I can attempt to describe, but you must remember it too well to make that necessary.
I will mention, however, a curious circumstance that my uncle told me as we were passing among the monstrous pillars of the nave: an attempt was made not very long ago to reduce them in size, or to chisel them into cluster columns; but they were found to be only hollow cases of masonry filled with loose stones. I could not help feeling glad that it had failed, for the contrast of their heavy, solid appearance, with the light elegance of the cloisters, I think improves each other. The choir is beautiful; and often as my aunt and uncle had seen them, they could not help stopping to admire the carved work and tracery of the stalls.
This fine cathedral was begun in the eleventh century, the cloisters were added in the fourteenth, and the west front was not completed till the fifteenth. My uncle took the opportunity of shewing me the different styles of Gothic architecture belonging to those periods; and on our road home, he explained the principal distinctions between the Saxon, Norman, and English styles, and the gradual alteration of the circular, sharp pointed, and flat arches. The subject was entirely new to me, but I felt so much interest in it that he has promised hereafter to go through a little course of architecture with me, from the Egyptian and Grecian to the Roman and Gothic.