OUR DEBT TO INSECTS. 345 



Before proceeding further, precautions should be taken against a 

 misconception which has already occurred in this connection. It is 

 not meant that bright colors will be found only among flower-haunt- 

 ers ; for it may easily happen that in a few instances other causes may 

 conspire to produce brilliant hues. Nor is it meant that all flower- 

 haunters are necessarily brilliant ; for it may also happen that some 

 special need of protection will occasionally keep down the production 

 of conspicuous tints. But what is meant is that brilliant colors are 

 found with very exceptional frequency among the specially flower- 

 haunting animals. 



Butterflies are the order of insects which require the largest mass 

 of color to attract them, and which seem to possess the highest aasthet- 

 ic sensibility. It is hardly necessary to say that butterflies are also the 

 most beautiful of all insects ; and are, moreover, noticeable for the 

 most highly developed ornamental adjuncts. Those butterflies make 

 the best matches in their world of fashion which have the brightest 

 crimson on their wings or the most exquisite gloss in their changeful 

 golden scales. With us, an eligible young man is too often a young 

 man with a handsome estate in the country, and with no other attrac- 

 tions mental or physical. Among insects, which have no estates, an 

 eligible young butterfly is one with a peculiarly deep and rich orange 

 band upon the tip of his wings. Thus the cumulative proof of the 

 aesthetic superiority of butterflies seems well-nigh complete. 



If we examine the lepidoptera or butterfly order in detail, we shall 

 find some striking conclusions of the same sort forced upon us. The 

 lepidoptera are divided into two great groups, the moths and the but- 

 terflies. Now, the moths fly about in the dusk or late at night ; the 

 flowers which attract them are pale, lacking in brilliancy, and, above 

 all, destitute of honey-guides in the shape of lines or spots ; and the 

 insects themselves are generally dark and dingy in coloration. When- 

 ever they possess any beauty of color, it takes the form of silvery scales 

 which reflect what little light there may be in the gray gloaming. The 

 butterflies, on the other hand, fly by day, and display, as we know, the 

 most beautiful colors of all insects. Here we must once more recall 

 that difference between the structure of the eye in nocturnal and diurnal 

 species which Mr. Lowne has pointed out. Nor is this all. While most 

 moths are night-fliers, there are a few tropical genera which have taken 

 to the same open daylight existence as the butterflies. In these cases, 

 the moths, unlike their nocturnal congeners, are clad in the most gor- 

 geous possible mixtures of brilliant metallic colors. 



Other instances of like kind occur in other orders. Thus, among 

 the beetles, there is one family, the rose-chafers, which has been special- 

 ized for flower-haunting ; and these are conspicuous for the beauty of 

 their coloring, including a vast number of the most brilliant exotic 

 species. Their allies, the common cock-chafers, however, which are 

 not specialized in the same manner, are mere black and inconspicuous 



