48 



the underside of whose wings was marked by metallic spots. The 

 male scales were of a very decided character, differing essentially 

 from those of the Pierida, on the one hand, and from the Hipparchicr, 

 which they somewhat resembled, on the other. Some were of a very 

 long, narrow, and ribbon-like form, with the tassel at the apex, while 

 others were shorter and broader. Some, too, like the Hipparchia, 

 were nearly opaque, except at the apex, while others had the ribbon- 

 like portion opaque for one-half its length. The position of these 

 scales on the wing differed from that of any others described, for, 

 instead of being placed in rows beneath the ordinary scales, they were 

 situated on the nervures or black veins of the upper surface, and had 

 mingled with them in some species very peculiar Indian club-shaped 

 scales or hairs. Mr. Watson, whose opportunities of examination had 

 been far greater and more extensive than his own, had found 

 " plumules," as he calls them, on thirty genera of butterflies, or nearly 

 600 species. In every case they were found on the male insects 

 alone. 



He consequently drew the inference, a very reasonable one, 

 that battledores, tasseled scales, or plumules, wherever found, were 

 characteristic of sex, and that of the male sex. What purpose they 

 served in the insect economy was not yet clear. Their paucity or 

 abundance on individuals could not be, as some had suggested, marks 

 of greater or less virility, because, as had been seen, scales did not 

 grow with the age of the individual, nor did they find more scales on 

 one freshly-emerged butterfly than another of the same species. They 

 might render the males more buoyant on the wing ; but here they were 

 met by this difficulty, well-known to field entomologists, the females 

 were more rapid in their movements, in most cases, than the males. 



They seemed rather to be the analogues of the beard in man, the 

 mane in the lion, the comb in the cock, or the more brilliant 

 plumage of some birds, and, possibly, to insect eyes rendered their 

 possessors more attractive than the duller-coloured and non-plumuled 

 sisters of their species. 



There were many debated points of structure he scarcely felt 

 justified in touching on, because he had rather dealt with the scales as 

 a means of differentialising species or determining sex, and not as tests 

 for objectives. 



