194 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



which proceeds the perfect hawk-moth in the following 

 summer. 



These arc some of the beauties as well as the monsters 

 of the night. Now let us see whether the day will reveal 

 any thing more perfect or more beautiful. 



Butterflies (Lcpidoptcra diurna). 



These beautiful, light-winged fairies possess one great ad- 

 vantage over the moths ; viz. : they are born to flourish in 

 the light, to adorn the brightest day, and to grow only 

 more resplendent in the dazzling beams of the noonday sun. 

 Of all the rich and sparkling colors that shine in Flora's 

 variegated summer dress, there are none more brilliant, 

 none that attract the eye so like flashes of unearthly light, 

 as those with which Nature lias adorned these flitting life- 

 beams of the day. It has passed into a moral axiom that 

 those human characters which can bear the most open, 

 scrutiny are the truest and the purest, while it is only the 

 evil who shun the light; and so, in our ordinary apprecia^ 

 tion of the beautiful, that which will bear the strongest 

 light without exhibiting imperfection is considered the most 

 perfect. 



Besides, the diurnal butterflies arc surrounded with scenes 

 and circumstances calculated to make them more attractive 

 than any others. They are not only more seen and noticed 

 in the day, but they appear at a season and time when the 

 summer's warmth and genial breath expands all hearts, 

 and draws out even the sick from their close and gloomy 

 chambers to admire the beauties of earth and air, and to 

 partake of the vivifying and gladdening influences which 

 Nature sheds around. Then they come, like winged mes- 

 sengers from the spheres of love and beauty, flitting from 

 flower to flower, basking in the sunshine, joyously provid- 

 ing for their future offspring ; and then not lingering along 

 to die in the winter of a desolate life, bnt, amidst all the 



