500 



HISTORY OF INSECTS. 



exhibited the various circumstances of that 

 surprising change. It has been remarked, 

 that butterflies may be easily distinguished 

 from flies of every other kind, by their wings : 



panded flower, and all their habits are such as beseem 

 ' pure creatures of the element.' They are seldom 

 noticed but in fine weather, and never in profusion but 

 when the season is in its highest bloom, and their ap- 

 pearance thus becomes associated in our minds with the 

 charms of external nature, and is connected with those 

 images of life and beauty which give rise to many of 

 the genial influences of summer. Several species also 

 contrive to outlive the winter, although their frail forms 

 seem but ill adapted to resist the rigours of that incle- 

 ment season, and issuing from their retreats in the first 

 warm days of spring, are among the earliest and not least 

 interesting heralds of the ' purple year*.' These cir- 

 cumstances, together with the very striking manner in 

 which they exhibit the phenomena of transformation, 

 have long rendered them general favourites, and caused 

 their history to be investigated with greater attention 

 than has been bestowed on insects of a less conspicuous 

 and attractive kind. 



"The diurnal Lepidoptera (or butterflies) are very 

 numerous in species, although but a limited number in- 

 habit this country. Between 2000 and 3000 have been 

 described, and it is probable that no inconsiderable num- 

 ber yet remain undiscovered. About seventy-five diffe- 

 rent species are recorded as indigenous to Britain. A 

 great proportion of the largest and most highly orna- 

 mented kinds are natives of the new world, especially of 

 Brazil ; but they abound in all tropical countries, and 

 some of these exotics present the most sumptuous ex- 

 amples of insect beauty. ' I should undertake an end- 

 less task,' say Messrs Kirby and Spence, or one or other 

 of these authors did I attempt to specify all the modes 

 of marking, clouding, and spotting, that variegate a wing, 

 and all the shades of colour that paint it, among the 

 lepidopterous tribes ; I shall therefore confine myself to 

 a few of the principal, especially those that distinguish 

 particular tribes and families. Of whole coloured wings, 

 I know none that dazzle the eye of the beholder so much 

 as the upper surface of those of Morpho Menelaus and 

 Tetemachus. Linne justly observes, that there is scarcely 

 any thing in nature that, for brightness and splendour, 

 can be paralleled with this colour: it is a kind of rich 

 ultramarine, that vies with the deepest and purest azure 

 of the sky ; and, what must cause a striking contrast in 

 flight, the prone surface of the wings is as dull and dark 

 as the supine is brilliant, so that one can conceive this 

 animal to appear like a planet in full radiance, and under 

 eclipse, as its wings open and shut in the blaze of a tro- 

 pical sun. Another butterfly (Papilio Ulysses) by its 

 radiating cerulean disk, surrounded on every side by a 

 margin intensely black, gives the idea of light first emer- 

 ging from primeval obscurity : it was probably this idea 

 of light shining in darkness, that induced Liune to give 

 it the name of the wisest of the Greeks in a dark and 

 barbarous age. I know no insect upon which the sight 

 rests with such untired pleasure as upon the lovely but- 

 terfly that bears the name of the unhappy Trojan king 

 (P. Priamus) ; the contrast of the rich green and black 

 of the velvet of its wings with each other, and with the 

 orange of its abdomen, is beyond expression regal and 

 magnificent.' 



" Although our British butterflies can in no way com- 

 pete with the magnificent examples just referred to, we 



* In the sunny clime of Italy, where it may be said that na- 

 never dies, and probably also in other southern countries 

 Europe, most of the species which with us retire on the ap- 

 proach of winter into the crevices of walls, and other sheltered 

 i nth n Vi re 8 r" U i P " the win S throughout even the colder 

 months-at least we know that it is so with Van. cardui, Ata- 

 lanta, and a few others. 



for, in others, they are either transparent, like 

 gauze, as we see in the common flesh-fly ; or 

 they are hard^and crusted, as we see in the 

 wings of the beetle. But in the butterfly, the 



yet possess many of great beauty, whether as regards the 

 brilliancy of their colour, or the harmonious manner in 

 which these colours are distributed. The bluish -purple 

 reflection that plays on the wings of the Emperor of the 

 woods, has a richness and brilliancy of tint, which is not 

 often surpassed. The prevailing hue among the Lyc&nce, 

 is fulgid copper colour, of a high degree of resplendency ; 

 and the Polyommati, which are so abundant in our pas- 

 tures, are remarkable for exhibiting, in great variety of 

 shade, the most delicate and beautiful tints of blue. What 

 can exceed the fine pencilling and harmonious tinting on 

 the under surface of the wings of Cynthia Cardui, Li- 

 menitis Camilla, and Vanessa Atalanta ; or the richness 

 of the eye-like spots that decorate the wings of the pea- 

 cock butterfly, and numerous other species ? The warm 

 and beautiful shades of yellow in Colias and Gonepteryx, 

 render them objects on which the eye rests with con- 

 tinual pleasure ; and the silvery spots and streaks on the 

 under side of the Fritillaries, form a fine relief, by their 

 brilliant metallic lustre, to the uniform and compara- 

 tively duller tints of black and brown which predominate 

 among that tribe. 



** The mode of painting employed to produce these rich 

 tints, may not improperly be called a kind of natural 

 mosaic, for the colours invariably reside in the scales, 

 which form a dense covering over the whole surface. 

 These scales are usually of an oval or elongated form, 

 and truncated at the tip, where they are occasionally 

 divided into teeth ; but sometimes they are conical, 

 linear, or triangular. They are fixed in the wing by 

 means of a narrow pedicle, and are most commonly dis- 

 posed in transverse rows, placed close together, and over- 

 lapping each other like the tiles of a rcfof. In some in- 

 stances, they are placed without any regular order, and 

 in certain cases there appear to be two layers of scales on 

 both sides of the wings. When they are rubbed on", the 

 wing is found to consist of an elastic membrane, thin and 

 transparent, and marked with slightly indented lines, 

 forming a kind of groove for the insertion of the scales. 

 The latter are so minute that they appear to the naked 

 eye like powder or dust, and as they are very closely 

 placed, their numbers on a single insect are astonishingly 

 great. Leeuwenhock counted upwards of 400,000 on 

 the wings of the silk moth, an insect not above one-fourth 

 of the size of some of our native butterflies. But how 

 much inferior must this number be to that necessary to 

 form a covering to some foreign butterflies, the wings of 

 which expand upwards of half a foot: or certain species 

 of moths, some of which (such as the atlas moth of the 

 east, or the great owl moth of Brazil,) sometimes mea- 

 sure nearly a foot across the wings ! A modern mosaic 

 picture may contain 870 tesserulse, or separate pieces, in 

 one square inch of surface: but the same extent of a 

 butterfly's wing sometimes consists of no fewer than 

 100,736 ! 



" In common with several other extensive races of 

 insects, butterflies derive their nourishment eiitirely from 

 liquid substances, and the structure of the mouth is con- 

 sequently very different from that of the masticating 

 kinds. They are hence classed among the haustellated 

 or suctorial tribes of insects. The most conspicuous and 

 elaborately constructed organ, is the long flexible tube 

 projecting from the mouth, which forms a canal through 

 which the alimentry juices are absorbed. This instru- 

 ment, which is sometimes of great length, is spirally con- 

 voluted when unemployed, but it can be unrolled with 

 great rapidity, and is admirably fitted to explore the 

 tubular corollas and deep-seated nectarias of flowers, for 

 the purpose of extracting their sweet secretions. It is of 



