510 THE BUTTERFLIES OF XEW ENGLAND. 



The chrysalids are either black with silvery white or nacreous markings, 

 or the converse ; they are rather stout but elongated, hardly angulated ; 

 the head is squarely cut, with no projecting ocellar prominences, and the 

 ofilded tubercles of the back are distant and conical. Thev are often of 

 very striking appearance, the color being compared by Abbot to " pol- 

 ished mother-of-pearl spotted with gold and black," and Edwards remark- 

 ing that the pearly surftice gives all the colors of the rainbow, while the 

 tubercles are sometimes metallic bronze. 



EXCURSUS XV.— THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF 

 ORNAMENTATION IN BUTTERFLIES. 



. . . But who cau paint 

 Like Nature? Cau imagination boast, 

 Amid its gay creation, hues lilie hers? 



Thompson.— /SJn-j'Hf/. 



Forever teaching us 

 The lesson which the many-colored skies, 

 The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies, 



Foreverraore repeat, 

 In varied tones and sweet, 

 That beauty, in and of itself, is good. 



Whittier. 



Doubtless every one is aware that the patterns on the painted wings 

 of butterflies are a sort of mosaic, formed by tiny colored scales, which by 

 varied combinations make the most exquisite designs. The very regular 

 arrangement of these scales may be less generally known ; for though 

 mere specks they overlie one another as slates on a roof; and just as fig- 

 ures made by the oblique arrangement of colored slates appear from a 

 distance to have straight and not serrate borders ; so, through the minute- 

 ness of the scales, markings on a butterfly's wing, which really have ragged 

 edges, appear perfectly uniform. 



From this peculiarity of wing adornment a whole order of insects, 

 including those popularly known as moths, millers, hawk or humming-bird 

 moths and butterflies, was named by Linne, Lepidoptera — scaly-wings. 

 As a general, but by no means universal, rule, the lowest of these insects 

 fly by night, some which hold a middle rank by twilight, while the highest 

 fly almost exclusively by day. Many of the night or twilight species rest 

 by day in exposed situations, and then cover the hind wings with the 

 front pair, and often the abdomen by both ; in such insects the upper 

 surfaces of the front wings are marked with variegated patterns, while the 

 hind wings and the under surfaces of both pairs are usually of a uniform 

 brown color. Even upon the upper surface of the front wings the tints 

 are usually very sombre, bright colors being exceptional among the 



