228 rAPTLTONTDiT: — BUTTERFLIES. 



Euplnea, E. corns, and E. pro/hoc) are quite frequent. 

 Their piissa«>^e is p^enerally in a northeasterly direction. The 

 flights of these delicate insects appear to the eye of a white 

 or pale yellow hue, and ap])arently to extend miles in 

 breadth, and of such prodigious length as to occupy hours, 

 and even days, in their uninterrupted passage. A friend of 

 Tennent, traveling from Kandy to Kornegalle, drove for 

 niiie miles through such a cloud of white Butterflies, which 

 was passing across the road by which he went Whence 

 these immense numbers of Butterflies come no one knows, 

 and whither going no one can tell. But the natives have a 

 superstitious belief that their flight is ultimately directed to 

 Adam's Peak, and that their pilgrimage ends on reaching 

 that sacred mountain.^ 



Moufet says : "Wert thou as strong as Milo or Hercules, 

 and wert fenced or guarded about with an host of giants for 

 force and valour, remember that such an army was put to 

 the worst by an army of Butterflies flying in troops in the 

 air, in the year 1104, and they hid the light of the sun like 

 a cloud. Licosthenes relates, that on the third day of Au- 

 gust, 1543, that no hearb was left by reason of their multi- 

 tudes, and they had devoured all the sweet dew and natural 

 moisture, and they had burned up the very grasse that was 

 consumed with their dry dung." ^ 



The most beautiful as well as pleasing emblem among the 

 Egyptians was exhibited under the character of Psyche — 

 the Soul. This was originally no other than a Butterfly : 

 but it afterwards was represented as a lovely female child 

 with the beautiful wings of that insect. The Butterfly, after 

 its first and second stages as an egg and larva, lies for a 

 season in a manner dead; and is inclosed in a sort of coffin. 

 In this state it remains a shorter or longer period; but at 

 last bursting its bonds, it comes out with new life, and in 

 the most beautiful attire. The Egyptians thought this a 

 very proper picture of the soul of man, and of the immor- 

 tality, to which it aspired. But they made it more particu- 

 larly an emblem of Osiris ; who having been confined in an 

 oak or coffin, and in a state of death, at last quitted his 

 prison, and enjoyed a renewal of life.^ This symbol passed 



1 Tcnnent's I^at. Hist, of Ceylon, ch. xii. p. 407. 



2 Tkeatr. Ins., p. 107. Topsel's Ilist. of Beasts, p. 974. 



3 Bryant's Anct. Mythol, ii. 386. 



