rili; liLTTKKKIA' IN ANCIKXT ART. 1257 



The chrvsnlidti arc rcniarkal)Ic amon{» North American types tor their 

 short, hhint. compact form and tor the very sligiit advance of the ocellar 

 proiuinonces ; anteriorly indeed tiiey iiave a snhtrnncate appearance vvliilc 

 behind tiie posterior lialt' of tiie ai)domen is conical ; slight, scarcely raised 

 ridges course longitudinally and obliquely over the body, which is more 

 uniform in color than in any other of our genera, and usually of a pea- 

 green hue. 



EXCURSUS XLVIII.—THE BUTTERFLY IN ANCIENT LIT- 

 ERATURE AND ART* BY C. II. B. 



Tlic liiiUerfly the ancient Grecians made 



The soul's (air emblem, and its only name — 



I?nt of the soul, escaped the slavish trade 



Of mortal life!— For in this earthly frame 



Our's is the reptile's lot, much toil", much blame, 



Manifold motions makin<? little speed. 



And to deform and kill the things whereon \xc feed. 



■ COLERIHGE. —PsycAe 



Thk earliest known mention of the butterfly is in a Chinese stoi-y be- 

 lonsjing to the sixth century before Christ. In it is related how Tschwang- 

 sang dreamed that he was a butterfly, and was told by his teacher, Lao-tze, 

 in explanation, that at the time of chaos he had been a white butterfly 

 whose sold, after its body had been swallowed by the phoenix, lived 

 on and appeared anew on earth in the form of Tschwang-sang." (Step- 

 hani.) 



In Greek literaturef the butterfly first appears in the writings of Aris- 

 totle, who says that buttei-flies are born from caterpillars, caterpillars from 

 cabbage leaves ; he describes the chrysalis, noting the fact that it moves when 

 touched and also speaks of the eg^, not however as an egg, but as a hard 

 substance, liquid within, which is produced by butterflies ; he also men- 

 tions the antennae. Aristotle speaks of transformations in other insects, l)ut 

 Theophrastus in one place says such changes are seen in butterflies 

 only. Plutarch speaks briefly of this three-fold form of life in caterpillar, 



•This sketch is taken mainly from a de- are also due to all who have kindly helped me 

 tailed account of the butterfly, given by Ste- by advice or explanations. C. H. B. 

 phani in the Comptc-rcndu of the St. Peters- fThe butterfly apparently does not occur 

 burg Archeolosrical Commission. He ha-s in the Egyptian hieroglyphs, "but in a 

 been for the most part closely followed, but, as mural painting in the British Museum, ob- 

 it was necessary to condense his descriptions, taincd from Thebes, there may be seen almost 

 I have found it impracticable to acknowledge a plague of butterflies." This painting 

 by quotation marks my indebtedness to him. has been assigned to the eighteenth or 

 For the Psyche-myth I have used Collignon's nineteenth dynasty (A. S. Murray, Academy, 

 interesting essay in the same way. Mythankc: xviii : 14). 



IS8 



