286 0;i Animals depicted on Antique Monuments. 



tribes are those that are the most common, and the most gener- 

 ally spread, over those temperate regions of our globe. 



Several Lepidoptera, remarkable alike for the beauty of their 

 hues and their great agility, have commanded the attention of 

 the antique artists. In studying the originals, we peculiarly ob- 

 serve, in the representation of these creatures, so light and bril- 

 liant, that genius of imitation which so eminently characterizes 

 the Greek and Roman schools, especially during that splendid 

 epoch, when these schools, adhering to true principles, produced 

 those chefs d'oeuvres which even yet astonish us. 



The facts which we have now recorded, will undoubtedly be 

 sufficient to prove to every unprejudiced individual, the minute 

 accuracy the ancients had attained in the imitation of all natur- 

 al objects. If a strong bias towards that which was true has 

 always guided them when they composed the fantastic creatures 

 of their fancy, inasmuch as each of the parts going to make the 

 whole is, when taken separately, minutely accurate, we may 

 safely conclude, that a not less minute attention has been given 

 in the representation of the real beings of which they wished to 

 communicate a just and precise conception. To be more assur- 

 edly convinced, we have only to glance generally over the an- 

 tiques that remain of the purer periods of Greece and Rome, 

 and, to a certain point, of Egypt too. Modern artists have 

 almost universally granted this meed of praise and justice to 

 their brethren of antiquity. 



In thus considering their works in a point of view that is alto- 

 gether peculiar, and perhaps hitherto not perceived, we have made 

 this truth still more striking, by demonstrating that their most 

 fantastic productions, in each of their component parts, are a 

 faithful and accurate imitation of nature ; the whole is as mon- 

 strous as it is fantastic, but the details remain accurate as they 

 ought to be. 



This point being proved, it now remains for us to establish 

 that the antique monuments preserve the traces of species which 

 no longer appear to be found on the globe, and which, there- 

 fore, must have been lost and become extinct since the epoch of 

 history. Thus we have species which have become extinct in con- 

 sequence of geological phenomena, others whose destruction may 

 have been contemporaneous or posterior to man's creation ; and 



