ORDER IV. 



iluTIIS AND BUTTERFLIES (LEPIDOPTERA). 



Caterpillar of the Saturnia lo. 



\YE now approach the most beautiful and, to the gener 

 ality of people, the most interesting department of Ento 

 mology. The splendor and variety of the insects of this 

 order has never failed to attract attention, and with all lov 

 ers of nature nothing more readily or more universally ex 

 cites the mingled emotions of pleasure and astonishment 

 than the careful examination of a rich collection of Moths 

 and Butterflies. The endless diversification of colors, which 

 are distributed in different forms upon the bodies and wings 

 of lepidopterous insects, and even upon the bodies of cater 

 pillars, some in lines, others in circles, or eyes, or hiero 

 glyphics, or letters, and all in ever-varying shape and hue, 

 can not fail to excite our admiration, and impress upon us 

 the conviction that even the most diminutive creations bear 

 the same stamp of pleasing and infinite variety which per- 



