CHAPTER 16.

 The butterflies, the poor butterflies that have gone out of fashion in these days, played, I am ashamed to say, a large part in my life during my childhood, as did also the flies, beetles¹ and lady-bugs and all the insects that are found upon flowers and in the grass. Although it gave me a great deal of pain to kill them, I was making a collection of them, and I was almost always seen with a butterfly net in my hand. Those flying about in our yard, that had strayed our way from the country, were not very beautiful it must be confessed, but I had the garden and woods of Limoise which all the summer long was a hunting-ground ever full of surprises and wonders.

 

But the caricatures by Topffer upon this subject made me thoughtful; and when Lucette one day caught me with several butterflies in my hat, and in her incomparably mocking voice called me, “Mr. Cryptogram,” I was much humiliated².

1 beetles   

n.甲虫( beetle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Beetles bury pellets of dung and lay their eggs within them. 甲壳虫把粪粒埋起来，然后在里面产卵。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This kind of beetles have hard shell. 这类甲虫有坚硬的外壳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 humiliated   

感到羞愧的

参考例句：

• Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当，父母也失体面。
• He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻，丢尽了面子。