THE ORDEXS OF INSECTS. 23 



munity. The queen cannot bear a rival ; and whenever a queen 

 bee emerges from the pupa, a mortal combat ensues, the sur' 

 vivor becoming queen of the hive. But in spring, when the 

 hive becomes overcrowded, it generally happens that the old 

 queen and several of her successors rush out of the hive in a 

 huff, attended by a numerous escort ; and these become the 

 founders of a new hive. This is called " swarming." 



The Lepidoptera, or Scale-winged Insects, include the Butter- 

 flies and Moths. They have four wings, clothed with a fine 

 dust which rubs off on the fingers, and which we find, under 

 the microscope, to be composed of elegantly formed scales. 

 They are classified primarily by differences in the structure of 

 their legs, wings, and antennae. Butterflies fly by day, and have 

 ample, gaily coloured wings, and a more or less abrupt knob at 

 the end of their antennae. Many butterflies have the front legs 

 more or less aborted, and useless for walking. As examples, we 

 may mention the Meadow Brown (Epinephile Janira), a brown 

 butterfly common in fields in summer, which has an eye-like 

 spot near the tip of the fore wings, surrounded with fulvous in 

 the female ; the Small Tortoiseshell (Vanessa Urtica?)> a reddish 

 butterfly, with black spots on the fore wings, and a black border 



Small Tortoiseshell (Vanessa Urticaf}^ natural size. 



spotted with blue round all the wings ; and the Fritillaries, 

 which are fulvous butterflies spotted with black, and generally 

 with silvery spots on the under side of the hind wings. All 

 these are rather large butterflies, measuring an inch and a half 

 or more across the wings ; some of the larger Fritillaries ex- 

 pand nearly three inches. Our most delicately formed butterflies, 

 the Small Blue and Copper Butterflies, which we see flitting about 

 over flowers in waste places, only measure about an inch across 



