200 
BUTTERFLY.. 
drops of a red-coloured lluid, more or less intense 
in dillerent species. This circumstance, exclusive 
of its analogy to the same process of Nature in 
other animals, is peculiarly worthy of attention 
from the explanation which it aftbrds of a pheno- 
menon sometimes considered, both in ancient and 
modern times, in the light of a prodigy; viz. the 
descent of red drops from the air; which has been 
called a shower of blood: an event recorded bv 
several writers, and particularly by Ovid, among 
the prodigies which took place after the death of 
the great dictator. 
“ Saepe face.s visse mediis ardere sub astris, 
Saepe inter nimbos guttae cecidere cruentae.” 
With threatening signs the lowering skies were fill’d. 
And sanguine drops from murky clouds distill’d. 
This highly rational elucidation of a pheno- 
menon at first view so inexplicable, seems to have 
been first given by the celebrated Peiresc, who 
with his own eyes observed the vestiges of an ap- 
pearance of this kind in France in the year l608, 
and was clearly convinced of its real origin, viz. 
the discharge above-mentioned from a species of 
Butterfly, (perhaps the P. urticas, or P. poly- 
chloros,) which happened during that season to 
be uncommonly plentiful in the particular district 
where the phasnomenon was observed. The same 
idea was also entertained by Swammerdam, though 
he does not appear to have verified it from his own 
observation. 
