THE SILVER BLUE BUTTERFLY. 151 



object can come in competition with it. On the 

 contrary, the under surface of the same animal exhibits 

 an example of a species of beauty, resulting from a 

 varied combination of the plainest and most sober 

 colours, the ground colour being brown, slightly 

 streaked with higher shades, and marked by several 

 very large ocellated ferruginous spots, with dark rings 

 and white pupils. 



Dr Shaw says, " If it were not almost bordering 

 on temerity to attempt a reason for this striking 

 difference between the two surfaces of the same 

 insect, one might suppose that this sobriety of colour- 

 ing on the lower side, is intended, in some measure, 

 to secure the animal, when sitting at rest with its 

 wings closed, from the depredations of birds, which 

 are less likely to be attracted in this state, than by 

 the full lustre of its expanded plumage." 



It is a native of South America ; the caterpillar is 

 very large, and of a yellow colour, thickly beset with 

 black spines. 



