A FEW NOTES ON THE BUTTERFLIES OF BARBADOS. 177 



November, I captured numbers of imagines of the above-named 

 Danais; they differed in no way from the typical D. archijrpus. 



As Hughes's book on the ' Natural History of Barbados ' is 

 so rare, I give here his quaint and quite untechnical descriptions 

 of Barbadian butterflies : — 



" The Black-spotted Butterfly. — This is about three-quarters 

 of an inch long. The back is covered with soft greenish down. 

 The abdomen is divided into several annuli, or sections, tho' 

 scarce perceivable. The antennae are about half an inch long, 

 and its legs six in number. It hath four very thin mem- 

 branaceous wings, covered with very fine yellow mealiness. This 

 mealy dust, when viewed through a microscope, appears to be so 

 many quills, feathered with the utmost exactness and proportion. 

 The body of this, as well as the following ones, is decked with a 

 profusion of beauty, and all, in the words of the great Milton — 



' wave tlieir limber fans 

 For wings, and smallest lineaments, exact 

 In all the liv'ries deck'd of summer's pride, 

 With spots of gold and purple, azure, and green.' 



Should any one impertinently ask, ' What use these things are 

 of in the creation ? ' he may be answered in the words of the 

 ingenious Mr. Ray, that they are designed ' ad ornatum universi, 

 et ut hominibus spectaculo sint ; ad rura illustranda, velut tot 

 bractese, infervientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem, 

 et varietatem contemplans mira voluptate non afiiciatur ? Quis 

 tot colorum et schematum elegantias naturae ipsius ingenio ex- 

 cogitatas et artificiis penicillo depictas, curiosis oculis intuens, 

 divinae artis vestigia eis im[)ressa non agnoscat et miretur ?' 



*' The White Butterfly. — This exactly resembles the last de- 

 scribed in every particular except its colour. These are chiefly 

 to be seen flying about ponds of stagnated waters in the most 

 beaten roads. 



" The Dark-red Black-spotted Butterfly. — This is about an 

 inch long from the head to the tail. Its antennae are three- 

 quarters of an inch long, and its two eyes black, round, and 

 shining. The wings are of a dirty red, irregularly impanelled 

 with black lists ; and the margin or border of each wing much 

 darker than the rest ; and here and there adorned with many 

 white spots, as well as the head, back, and breast. The abdomen 

 is of a dark ferrugineous colour, and composed of seven annuli." 



Are not these perfectly delightful diagnoses of Lepidoptera ? 

 There is something quite refreshing to the jaded student of 

 scientific descriptions, whose tongue wearies of such phrases 

 as "caputal squammation," "disco-cellular nervule," " sero- 

 biculate," and the like, in Mr. Hughes's comprehensive summary 

 of a butterfly as having "pale red and whitish spots intermixed 

 with the black." Now-a-days entomologists do not quote Milton 

 and " the ingenious Mr. Ray," nor would a modern evolutionist 



