126 THE PEACOCK BUTTERFLY. 



and affords a satisfactory explanation of what has 

 been looked upon as a prodigy, and as fearful prog- 

 nostics of some approaching direful event. That 

 which historians recorded as preternatural, is now 

 stripped of its terrors, and is ranged among cir- 

 cumstances which happen in the common course of 

 nature. These appearances, both in ancient and 

 modern times, in the hands of wicked men, had a 

 wonderful influence in farthering their base designs 

 over the superstitious. 



