1258 THE BUTTERFLIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



chrysalis and butterfly. In Nicander the (jxlXaiva is mentioned which 

 "flutters round the lamp" and the scholiasts annotate "the <f)u\aiva ia 

 caUed -^vx^ with us ; (f)dXaiva is a Rhodian name." Hesychius cautiously 

 defines a chrysalis as spnmg "some say" from a caterpillar. The words 

 yfrvx'j and papilio like the German schmetterling, mean moth as well as 

 butterfly, and Ovid's "papilione" in the following lines (Ov. M., 15, 376) 

 is a moth : — 



Quaeque solent canis frondes intexei-e filis 



Agrestes tineae, res observata colonis, 



Ferali mutant cum papilione figuram. 

 Bottiger translates "ferali papilione" as "selbst sich sengendem schmet- 

 terling," suicidal buttei-fly one might say. Similar lines attributed to 

 Lactantius describe cocoons seen among rocks. (De Phoenice, 107) : — 



Ac velut agrestes, cum filo ad saxa tenentur, 

 Mutari tineae papilione solent. 



Pliny mentions the "papilio" seven times in his Natural History, mean- 

 ing by the word in four of these places moth. He gives an interesting 

 description of the silk-worm and tlie formation of its cocoon, of the bee- 

 hive moth and the means of destroying it, a subject which was treated by 

 Aristotle and Columella before him. A curious passage is that where he 

 says, "the moth (papilio) that is seen fluttering about the flame of a lamp 

 is generally reckoned in the number of noxious medicaments ; its bad ef- 

 fects are neutralized by the agency of goat's liver." In two of the remain- 

 ing passages he borrows freely from Aristotle, but he carries the origin 

 of the butterfly back to "the dew, which settles upon the cabbage leaf in 

 spring, and is thickened by the action of the sun." After romance, a bit 

 of fact from the same author is welcome. "There are some who look 

 upon the appearance of the butterfly as the surest sign of spring, because 

 of the extreme delicacy of that insect. In this present year, however, in 

 which I am penning these lines, it has been remarked that the flights of 

 buttei-flies have been killed three several times by as many returns of the 

 cold." (Bohn's translation.) Tertullian in speaking of different animals 

 as opposed in their nature to different elements says, "In like manner, 

 those creatures are opposite to water, which are in their nature dry and 

 sapless ; indeed locusts, butterflies and chameleons rejoice in droughts." 

 (P. Holmes's translation.) 



We have seen that the word -^vxV' meaning butterfly, first occurs three 

 hundi-ed and fifty years B. C, but ip-v^v, the soul, is imagined with wings 

 in the time of the Homeric poems ; since in II. xxii : 362, Od., xi : 222, 

 the i^iipj^jj is spoken of as flying away. Finally in an epigram by Me- 

 leager (Anth. Pal., xii : 132) there is a play upon the double meaning of 

 the word : — 



