vl INTRODUCTION, 
A somewhat remarkable distinction between Butterflies and Moths is that exhibited 
respectively by these groups of insects when in repose ; the Butterfly sitting with its wings 
raised face to face over its back, while the Moth allows its wings to fall on each side towards 
the substance on which it is resting, and in this position they remain with the upper sides in 
full view, which, from the internal edges, slope outwards with about the inclination of an ordinary 
roof. 
Still another distinction, and one which has served as the basis of the scientific line of 
separation, is the form of the horns, or antenns, which in the Butterflies are invariably furnished 
with a small club-like appendage at the extremity, while in Moths the antennz are always more 
or less pointed at the end. 
In the preparatory and successive states of egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis, common to both 
Moths and Butterflies, the distinction is only strikingly remarkable in one stage, that of the 
chrysalis. The general aspect of the egg and caterpillar being in many cases so similar, that 
unless from positive knowledge of the species, it would be difficult to decide at a glance, 
whether they were the eggs and caterpillars of Moths or Butterflies ; but in the chrysalis stage 
the angular forms and light colouring of the Chrysalides of Butterflies at once distinguish them 
from those of the Moths, the conical forms of which are generally smooth, and almost invariably 
dark-coloured. 
A characteristic to be especially noted in these interesting insects, and perhaps the one 
most intimately connected with their peculiar beauty, is common to both Moths and Buttertlies, 
and distinguishes them from nearly all other insects. I allude to the beautiful feather-like 
scales with which their wings are invariably clothed on the upper surface, and most frequently 
on the under surface also. This character, which the two families possess in common, has 
furnished the scientific title (to be described hereafter) of the ‘order’ to which they are made to 
belong. It is indeed an amply sufficient distinction, being a leading and prevailing characteristic, 
scarcely ever found in any other class of insects. There are, however, some remarkable excep- 
tions ; as for instance, the perfect insect of the Caddis-worm, a creature very closely resembling 
a moth, which has the wings closely clothed with a precisely similar kind of scales ; and some 
other examples might be cited, though not in sufficient number to invalidate these characteristic 
scales as an all-sufficient means of distinguishing the insect ‘ order’ now under description. 
The wings of Butterflies and Moths may then, for all the purposes of scientific classification, 
be said to be, exclusively, furnished with a clothing of feather-like scales, to which they are in- 
debted for all their beautiful markings ; for if these coloured scales be carefully brushed away, the 
naked wings will present, only upon a much larger scale, the general appearance of those of a 
common housefly, consisting, as they do, of an excessively thin and nearly perfectly transparent 
tissue, strengthened by a branching framework of nervures, or veins, as they are more 
commonly called, which maintains the almost film-like substance distended in an even plane, 
thus ensuring the form and also the strength necessary to the wings during their exertion in the 
action of flight. 
In order to understand the nature of the entire existence of a Butterfly, it will be necessary 
to consider its aspect under the successive forms or metamorphoses by means of which its 
progress to completeness is effected. 
The egg, which is laid by the female Butterfly in some secure situation, in which the infant 
insect when hatched is sure to find abundance of food, is ordinarily of about the dimension— 
to use a trite comparison—of a pin’s head, of average size ; and to the naked eye it presents a 
somewhat similar appearance,—but placed under a microscope, beneath the power of which so 
many of the mysteries of nature have heen unfolded, it assumes a peculiar and distinctive form 
not found in any other class of eggs. The eggs of Butterflies and Moths are seldom or never 
of the usual oval or egg-form ; and instead of being smooth, like the eggs of birds, they are 
