TROPICAL NATURE 



others long and pointed. Many have double or triple tails, 

 and some of the smaller species have them immensely elon- 

 gated and often elegantly curled. In some groups the wings 

 are long and narrow, in others strongly falcate ; and though 

 many fly with immense rapidity, a large number nutter lazily 

 along, as if they had no enemies to fear, and therefore no 

 occasion to hurry. 



The number of species of butterflies inhabiting any one 

 locality is very variable, and is, as a rule, far larger in 

 America than in the Eastern hemisphere ; but it everywhere 

 very much surpasses the numbers in the temperate zone. A 

 few months' assiduous collecting in any of the Malay islands 

 will produce from 150 to 250 species of butterflies, and thirty 

 or forty species may be obtained any fine day in good locali- 

 ties. In the Amazon valley, however, much greater results 

 may be achieved. A good day's collecting will produce from 

 forty to seventy species, while in one year at Para about 600 

 species were obtained. More than 700 species of butterflies 

 actually inhabit the district immediately around the city of 

 Para, and this, as far as we yet know, is the richest spot on 

 the globe for diurnal lepidoptera. At Ega, during four years' 

 collecting, Mr. Bates obtained 550 species, and these, on the 

 whole, surpassed those of Para in variety and beauty. Mr. 

 Bates thus speaks of a favourite locality on the margin of the 

 lake near Ega : " The number and variety of gaily -tinted 

 butterflies, sporting about in this grove on sunny days, were 

 so great that the bright moving flakes of colour gave quite a 

 character to the physiognomy of the place. It was impossible 

 to walk far without disturbing flocks of them from the damp 

 sand at the edge of the water, where they congregated to 

 imbibe the moisture. They were of almost all colours, sizes, 

 and shapes ; I noticed here altogether eighty species, belonging 

 to twenty-two distinct genera. The most abundant, next to 

 the very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds, 

 were about a dozen species of Eunica, which are of large size 

 and conspicuous from their liveries of glossy dark blue and 

 purple. A superbly adorned creature, the Callithea markii, 

 having wings of a thick texture, coloured sapphire-blue and 

 orange, was only an occasional visitor. On certain days, when 

 the weather was very calm, two small gilded species (Sym- 



