MR. W. S. MACLEAY ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF URANIA. 189 
In a work which by the old Linnzean school was long reckoned of classical authority, 
but of which later and more accurate researches have demonstrated the dangerous 
worthlessness,—I mean Madame Merian’s drawings of the insects of Surinam!,—we 
find the following description of an insect which, to judge from the figure, has been 
since described as Papilio or Ur. Leilus. 
‘*Tnsident arboribus, virentemque earum depascunt frondem eruce virides, quibus 
caput cceruleum, corpus est pilis oblongis onustum, ferreo filo non mollioribus. 
Die 3 Augusti cceperunt agglutinari, in aurelias ex spadiceo maculatas dein permu- 
tate ; undé ejusdem mensis die 19 tam venustz exierunt papiliones, variis picte colo- 
ribus, nigro, viridi, cceruleo et albo, atque auri et argerti instar fulgentes; adeo veloces 
autem et altivolantes, ut vix nisi per erucarum metamorphosin capi possint illzsze.”’ 
This last sentence is without doubt a good description of the flight of Urania, and 
perhaps the whole paragraph may be true of Ur. Leilus; but I must observe that the 
larva of Ur. Fernandine has no resemblance to Madame Merian’s figure of that of 
Ur. Leilus?. It is not green, has not a blue head: and so far from the hairs which 
cover its body being as hard as iron-wire, they are delicately soft and slender, and only 
moderately long. The larva of Ur. Fernandine does not glue itself to anything, but it 
spins an oval cocoon of dirty yellow silk, of which the threads are so lax, that the 
chrysalis remains visible through the meshes. Thus, so far as the metamorphosis is 
concerned, there is scarcely any resemblance between Madame Merian’s description of 
Ur. Leilus and that which I have given of Ur. Fernandine. Ido not say that the lady 
may not possibly in this particular instance have been faithful to Nature ; but knowing 
how little she deserves to be believed on other points, and indeed having scarcely ever 
to the distribution of Lepidoptera; but I am not aware that any subsequent person has acted upon it except my 
ingenious and active friend M. Poéy, who in his excellent ‘Centurie de Lepidoptéres de I'Ile de Cuba’ has 
generally given a representation of the neuration of the wings au trait with each species figured. Still M. Poéy, 
like his predecessors, has not ventured to make any use of these important considerations in his descriptions,— 
a circumstance only to be attributed to his being duly sensible of our wanting that sufficiently valid generali- 
zation which can alone put the use of these organs of the wing within our power, either for analysis or syn- 
thesis. I shall be reminded, indeed, that Messrs. Kirby and Spence have attempted to remedy this deficiency 
in their valuable ‘ Introduction’; but it can scarcely excite surprise if these learned entomologists, among such 
a vast multitude of subjects for their attention, should be found to have still left much to be done with respect 
to the generalization of the Lepidopterous wing. 
| The original drawings of this work are, I believe, in the British Museum, and in the late Dr. Shaw’s time 
used to be considered among its choicest treasures. Cuvier, in the fourth volume of his ‘ Regne Animal,’ calls 
the work itself a posthumous one, which, if true, might make us suspect that some portion of its faults ought 
to be assigned to the ignorance of its editor; but according to Messrs. Kirby and Spence, there is an Amster- 
dam edition of 1705, that is, twelve years prior to Madame Merian’s death. 
* This indeed seems to be a compound between a caterpillar and a Cermatia, and I have not the least doubt 
is quite an imaginary being. I judge from a traced outline which Dr. Horsfield, at my request, has had the 
goodness to send me from England. 
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