BUTTERFLY PLUMAGE. 127 



lieu of the seed and its feathery down, devoured and arrested, 

 they themselves are seen floating through the air in the winged 

 forms of downy Moth or glittering Fly. 



For the most part, the wings of both sexes among Butterflies 

 are adorned alike, but sometimes, as with the feathered race, 

 there is a difference clearly not to the lady's advantage, in the 

 painting of her pigmy plumes. The pretty Orange-Tip, 1 that 

 well-known sporter amidst sylvan glades and meadows, has at 

 home occasionally beside him a white-winged partner, bearing 

 his name, but without a colour of pretension to the title. The 

 brilliant blue of our little Argus, of fighting celebrity, is 

 deepened in his lady to a purplish brown ; while the bright 

 yellow of the Brimstone beau 2 fades in his modest belle to a 

 greenish white. 



Perhaps in the whole range of nature there is no object of 

 equal size which presents so much combined splendour, variety, 

 and elegance, as a Butterfly's wing, 



" Where colours blend in ever varying dye. 

 And wanton in their gay exchanges vie." 



Its richness of hue and velvety softness of texture are produced 

 by the seeming powder, in reality minute feathers or scales, 

 sometimes intermixed with hairs, by which it is thickly over- 

 laid in the manner of a roof with tiles. The number of these 

 little plumes is immense, yet hardly so prodigious as the 

 patience of certain Entomologists, who having counted, found 

 them on the wing of a Silk-worm Moth to amount to 400,000 ; 

 while as many as 300,735 were found comprised within a 

 single square inch of that of a Peacock Butterfly. When 

 stripped of its plumage, the wing, as all must have noticed, is 

 left a thin transparent membrane, intersected by nervures and 

 dotted with little holes wherein the plumelets were inserted. 

 In a few instances (chiefly in tropical insects) spots are left by 

 nature perfectly transparent, contrasting prettily with the rich 

 velvet which surrounds them. 



1 Pontia cardamines. 3 Gonapterix rhamni 



