164 MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



SUB-ORDER RHOPALOCERA. The Butterflies. 



The hard and fast lines tixed by naturalists do not really exist in 

 Nature. As daylight blends into darkness and night again into day, 

 or as the colors of the rainbow softly shade into one another, the 

 violet into the blue, and the blue into the green, etc., so the diffei'ent 

 groups of insects pass b}- almost insensible gradations one into 

 another. 



The most noticeable difference between the moths and butterflies 

 is in the shape of tlie antenna?, being nearly always pointed in 

 the former, and blunt or knobbed at the ends in the latter. This, 

 however, is by no means a sure guide, as many of the Sphingidje 

 have club-shaped antennfc, while the lowest group of the butterflies, 

 the Hfsperidte, are furnished with aiitenme having hooked extremities 

 with acutely pointed ends. 



None of tlie buttertlies have the wings joined with the loop and 

 bristle usually lound among the moths. 'i"he Imttertlies are all day- 

 flyers, thus differing in their lial)its in a marked degree from the 

 majority of the moths. 



The surface of the eggs of butterflies is often ornamented, while 

 the eggs of most of the moths are })lain and smootli. The larvie of 

 all butterflies, with the exception of a few of the lower species, are 

 external feeders, and, unlike the motlis, except among the Henper- 

 ida', the}' spin no cocoons, the naked chrysalis l)eing usually suspended 

 from a silken mat by the posterior extremity and eitlier with or with- 

 out a l)and of silk about tlie middle of the body. 



These chrysalides are of various sliapes, some angular, others 

 bearing spines and horns, while many of them are objects of extreme 

 beauty ; as handsome as jewels and looking exactly as if eml)ossed 

 with gold. The chrysalis stage usually lasts about twenty daj's, 

 although in a number of species the winter is passed in this stage. 



The buttei-flies, wliile at rest, usually liold the wings upright, 

 back to back, while the same organs in the moths are generally 

 folded roof-shape over the abdomen, or expanded flat u])on the sup- 

 port of the insect. In coloring, the butterflies are geneially much 

 more striking than the moths, their wings being ornamented in many 



