THE MOSAIC OF COLOURS 



have longitudinal stripes of white across the wings, a row of red 

 spots on each hind-wing, and long tails. The Brazilian Hectorides 

 is very like the Hector which I so admired in Ceylon. 



We find similar colour-schemes in butterflies of other groups. 

 The dark Didonis biblis seems to have dipped the hinder edge of its 

 wings in blood, and in the great pearly South American Prepona 

 a broad green stripe merges into a splendid shimmering violet 

 before it is absorbed by the black ground-tone. The great Agrias 

 displays a quite indescribable chromatic splendour: as though a 

 Bocklin had amused himself by laying the most radiant red and 

 blue conceivable on the dark upper surface of the wings, and by 

 covering the yellow background of the under surfaces with labyrin- 

 thine lines and specks of black and blue. Standinger calls these 

 butterflies the royal family of their group. 



But I must not linger over these glorious butterflies, however 

 vividly their shimmering colours appear to me as I name them. 

 Their effect was often intensified by their presence in great numbers. 

 In Nova Friburgo the long, narrow Colaenis Julia, in colour a 

 luminous orange-red, floated everywhere amidst the trees, a con- 

 tinual illumination, which the eye followed with delight; round 

 a flowering shrub in Pernambuco swarms of Anartia amalthea 

 fluttered, in colouring not unlike our Red Admiral, and in Olinda 

 I once saw swarms of Pieris passing for hours on end, for all the 

 world like a driving fall of snow. What caused these creatures to 

 migrate is still a complete mystery. 



The most conspicuous of the Lepidoptera of Brazil are a whole 

 series of butterflies whose chief peculiarity is that their wings are 

 long and narrow, so that the flying butterfly has the look of an 

 aeroplane. This similarity is increased by the fact that the butterfly 

 seems to be driven by a propeller, for while most butterflies flutter, 

 that is, clap the wings together above their bodies and open them 

 again, the wings of the butterflies in question always remain extended, 

 so that the form of the insect never alters. On closer inspection it 

 looks as though the extreme tips of the wings are moving. In any 

 case, the insect has a very remarkable flight, which makes it all 

 the more conspicuous (Plate 29) . 



There is a whole series of families of such "aeroplane butterflies," 

 all typically South American ; indeed, one group of them has been 

 named the Neotropineae. Some of these butterflies have wings like 

 yellow glass framed in black borders, reminding one of a stained 

 glass window (Plate 29, 1, 8). These are the Methonae, the Therididae 



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