BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 3043 



upper sides are richly colored, while the under sides are dull brown mottled and 

 veined with darker colors. So conspicuous a butterfly would not fail to fall a ready 

 prey to foes. If it but settle for an instant, however, the sharpest eye will not 

 detect them. The secret lies in the color and veining of the under side. The fly 

 settles, clings to a twig, presses the tails of the under wings now folded together 

 against it and nothing but an old withered leaf remains where but just now was a 

 gaudy butterfly. A species of the genus Heliconius, an insect avoided by birds 

 on account of its bitter flavor, is closely mimicked by another butterfly of the genus 

 Mechanics. Though very sweet flavored, it escapes unmolested among its less 

 agreeable companions. The mimicry involved in the feigning of death by many 

 species of moths is, of course, protective. It has even been asserted that a specimen;, 

 of the magpie moth continued to feign death three hours after its head had been 

 severed from the thorax. 



If all the dangers noted have been passed through with im- 

 Perfect punity, in due time; at various seasons of the year, the perfect in- 

 Insect sects butterfly, or moth, as the case maybe will emerge. These 

 vary in size from twelve inches or more in the expanse of the upper 

 wings to a quarter of an inch; the latter being among the smallest moths, or' 

 Microlepidoptera . We have remarked that the body is divided into three distinct: 

 divisions, head, thorax, and abdomen; we must now shortly notice the various- 

 structures peculiar to each division. The first division of a lepidopterous body is 

 itself divided into four main divisions. The occiput, next to the 

 thorax; the epicranium, bearing the antennae; and, in some moths, 

 the ocelli or simple eyes; the clypeus, lying in front of the epicranium, just on the 

 mouth parts, which latter themselves fall into at least five or six distinct structures; 

 the proboscis, long, and capable of being rolled up beneath the labrum when a trest;: 

 the labrum, lying at the base of the proboscis, above; the maxillary palpi (absent 

 or rudimentary in the butterflies); the labial palpi, and rudimentary mandibles, 

 aborted in many cases, complete the mouth structures. It is in the structure of the 

 mouth parts, perhaps, that the butterflies and moths differ most from other insects, 

 and more especially from the fact that the mandibles of the insects have in the 

 I,epidoptera become modified into a long, spirally curled, retractile proboscis, com- 

 posed of three distinct hollow tubes, soldered to each other along their inner mar- 

 gins. Indeed, it has much the appearance of a double-barreled gun, with a third 

 tube lying below beneath the suture of the upper and larger pair. But it is with 

 this latter alone that nutrition is imbibed, and it is supposed that the other pair 

 may furnish air in addition to that obtained through the spiracular orifices along 

 the abdomen. The ocelli, or simple eyes, resembling those of the larvae; the small 

 eyes on the upper part of the head of bees and other Hymenoptera, as well as those 

 of other Arthropods, such as we find to the number of from four to eight in the. 

 spiders, are not discoverable in the butterflies, but are present in the moths alone.. 

 The large compound eye, composed of numerous facets, is, however, present in bothi 

 sections of the order, lying on either side of the epicranium, just below the point of 

 insertion of the antennae. Whether they see nature with these "as through a 

 veil ' ' or appreciate every detail as we do ourselves, is a matter of speculation, but 



