158 



LEriDOPTEEA. 



work of exquisite delicacy and beauty. Their mouth 

 is adapted to pump up the nectareous juices from 

 the cups of flowers, and is necessarily of considerable 

 length, in order to enable the insect to reach the 

 recesses in which the honied stores are lodged. 

 When unfolded, the extraordinary apparatus re- 

 sembles a long double whip-lash, and if examined 

 under a microscope, is found to be made up of in- 

 numerable rings connected together and moved by a 

 double layer of spiral muscles, that wind in opposite 

 directions. When not in use, this singular pro- 



FlG. 11 7.— SCALES OF BUITEKFLT'S WING. 



boscis is coiled up into a very small space, and 

 lodged beneath the head. The larvm are commonly 

 known by the name of caterpillars : they have a 

 soft cylindrical body, tlu'ee pairs of horny legs, and 

 from four to ten pairs of false feet or ''dingers" 

 attached to the hinder segments, each composed of 

 a circle of horny booklets supported on a fleshy pro- 

 tuberance. The imim, called a chrysalis, is motion- 

 less, and its limbs are folded down and covered with 

 a trans23arent varnish. Their position, however, can 

 be generally distinctly traced. 



The Lep)idoptera are classed by entomologists 

 under three great sections. The Diurnal, that only 

 fly by day ; the Crepuscular, only seen during the 

 morning or evening twilight ; and the Nocturnal, 

 whose period of activity is during the night : each 

 of these will require separate notice. 



The Diurnal Lepidoptera art 



The Butteriiies (Pajnlionidce). These beautiful in- 



