What numbers [of insects] vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various beauties! Some in the delicacy and variety of their colours, colours notlike those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and durable, surviving their subject, and adorning it as much after death as they did when it was alive.

An Introduction to Entomology; Or, Elements of the Natural History of, Insects (Volume 1), Introductory Letter (p. 8)