318 BUTTERFLY PLUMAGE. 



Perhaps in the whole range of nature there is no object of 

 equal size which presents so much combined splendour, variety, 

 and elegance, as a Butterfly's wing, 



" Where colours blend in ever varying dye, 

 And wanton in their gay exchanges vie." 



Its richness of hue and velvety softness of texture are produced 

 by the seeming powder, in reality minute feathers or scales, 

 sometimes intermixed with hairs, by which it is thickly over- 

 laid in the manner of a roof with tiles. The number of these 

 little plumes is immense, yet hardly so prodigious as the 

 patience of certain Entomologists, who having counted, found 

 them on the wing of a Silk-worm Moth to amount to 400,000 ; 

 while as many as 100,735 were found comprised within a 

 single square inch of that of a Peacock Butterfly. When 

 stripped of its plumage, the wing, as all must have noticed, is 

 left a thin transparent membrane, intersected by nervures and 

 dotted with little holes wherein the plumelets were inserted. 

 In a few instances (chiefly in tropical insects) spots are left by 

 nature perfectly transparent, contrasting prettily with the rich 

 velvet which surrounds them. 



Several tribes of our native Butterflies are distinguished and 

 classed according to their prevailing colours. Our fulgid 

 Coppers,* and Fritillaries t with silver-spotted wings, look 

 allied by their metallic lustre with the metallic productions of 

 earth. Our Bluest imitate the azure tints of the sky, while 



* Lyctena. j Melitcca. | Polyommatus. 



