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buttcrilie« with six legs were earliest on the 

 scene for those with tassel fore feet are (^ripples ; 

 and in South America it is surmised tiie\- had 

 their origin. The Rev. J. G. Wood has been 

 struck with the lovely scales that glitter on 

 the wings of certain South American moths with 

 pectinated antennae, exemplified by Atheiiia 

 luaehaouaria and Ht'liconisa impar, the Era- 

 leiiias and Uraiiias that respectively resemble 

 the swallow tails, Helifoiiius and Catagraniina 

 butterflies ; and Mr W. F. Kirby mentions that 

 the Hesperidae which are considered to be a 

 connecting link have the majority of their genera 

 and species in South America. Though our English 

 skippers, whose caterpillars like those of the 

 Tortricina roll up leaves, ûy by day over the 

 brambles this is not the case in the tropics, Mr. 

 W. D. Gooch has metioned that most of the 

 Hesperidae in Natal are crepuscular and an ob- 

 .server in Ceylon remarked that during the short 

 eastern twilight the common Paiiipliila hesperia 

 may be seen hurrj'ing by abrupt and jerking 

 flights to the scented blossoms of the champac 

 or the sweet night blooming moonflowcn- 'that 

 unfolds its light a peart around the loi'ks of 

 night'; and I myself retain a hazy recollection 

 of another Rliopalocampta florestan with a white 

 crescent on its wing that in the chiaroscuro of 

 the twilight came to visit a garden pea of an 

 ultramarine blue colour at Mahebourg in Mauritius. 

 The butterflies with six feet sometimes possess 

 the scent fans of the moths. Dr. Fritz Müller 

 says the male of Plesioneura eligeus, a skipper 

 found in Brazil, has the fans of the Pyralidina 

 and Geometrina on its legs which diffuse a faint 

 odour; and the male of our Dingy Skipper which 

 shuts its wings like a moth over its back when 

 it sleeps on the ferns has something similar on 

 its hinder ones. The fragrance of other ex- 

 quisites has been compared to sweet-liriar, lemon 

 verbena, violet powder, sandlewood and acetylene, 

 but some of these delights may have been stolen 

 from the flowers. The male of the clover haunting 

 Colias edusa has a chalky spot on its hind 

 wings as has the more fiery Indian Fieldii , in 

 the Pale Clouded Yellow this is wanting : the 

 males of the (-atopsilias have in addition to the 

 chalk spot a white tuft contained in a pouch on 

 the fore wing that expands into a silky star 

 and dift'nses around a musky smell. Mr. Wood 

 Mason and Dr. G. B. Longstafl^ have found that 

 the wing fans of Catopsilia pjranthe and pomona 

 scatter a scent of jessamine , which may be the 

 .summons to that wonderful periodical migration 

 of the former in Ceylon recently described by 

 (Colonel Neville Maunders who on landing at 

 Colombo on October 25, 1895, said, 'he stepped 

 into a land of butterflies', and encountered a 

 'snow storm of Catopsilias'. Dr. Longstaff who 

 found Catopsilia florella feeding on the large 



flowers of Combretum among the Zambesi scrub 

 tells us that when its tufts are exposed by 

 separating the fore and hind wings there comes 

 a wiff of tuberose; Dr. F. A. Dixey thought of 

 jessamine , and the same authorities relate that 

 when the hind wings of Mycalesis sifitza were 

 separated so as to expose the tufts thty perceived 

 a wiÖ' of chocolate or vanilla. These wing fans 

 recall the tufts possessed by the geometrical 

 moths of the genus Cidaria and from a figure 

 in the Naturalist's Lilirary I imagine they are 

 also present on the hind wings of Ueliconiiis 

 diaphana found in Virginia, Jamaica and Brazil. 



The Nymphalidae that float down tlie wood- 

 land glade on muscular wings and settle with 

 a forward impetus have their fore legs tassel 

 like ; and the Erycinidae whose more nimble 

 males alone have these crippled legs are again 

 peculiar to South America, according to Mr. 

 Kirby, their only representative that has intruded 

 into Europe being Neuieobius liu-iiia, small and 

 neat in England and larger with darker males 

 in Italy, which at the return of spring flies 

 over the bugles and hyacinths in the wood 

 clearings. The underside of the wings of the 

 Nymphalidae often resemble the fallen leaves 

 among which they seek concealment, those of 

 the Indian genus Kallima having in an embroidery 

 of scale work the additional deception of an oval 

 stalked tropical leaf mottled over with fungus. 

 Our Vanessa l)utterflies are singularly black 

 beneath and in Wales the comma is blacker 

 than in Italy, Vanessa Milberti from Hudson's 

 Bay looks like a Small Tortoise-shell smudged 

 with printer's ink : black butterflies and moths 

 seem peculiar to the American States , where it 

 is true the winters are colder than in Europe 

 that is warmed by the Gulph Stream , and it 

 is also remarkable that as you ascend the Alps 

 insects become blacker, there the fulvous Melltaea 

 artemis is replaced in the swamp by the sombre 

 Melitae cyuthia; strange to say too after the 

 cold summer of 1907 I captured in Devonshire 

 an inky black Triphaena janthina and sooty 

 black Cidaria immanata, which I imagine a late 

 brood of russata found in Europe and Canada. 

 This looks like the influence of cold and damp, 

 but then in the woods of Prussia the Vanessa 

 levana is fulvous in the spring and its summer 

 brood prorsa is black, and nothing but the smoke of 

 the manufacturies seems to account for the black 

 moths that are peculiar to the north of England. 



The Nymphalidae are decidedly musical and 

 some are sedentary performers. I remember when 

 a boy dislodging Vanessa jo in the sunshine of 

 the frosty morning from its winter sleep among 

 the bats and cobwebs of a Hampshire hay loft, 

 and the delight experienced on beholding its inky 

 wings expand and disclose peacock eyes while 

 the fore chafed on the hinder with a sound that 



