348 ARTICULATA. INSECTA. 



ORDER X. LEPIDOPTERA 



WE are now arrived at the loveliest of all Insects, 

 if not of all animals. They are marked by the pos- 

 session of four large wings, transparent in their own 

 substance, but in general thickly clothed on both 

 surfaces with a series of minute feather-like scales, 

 which lap over each other, and, being of different co- 

 lours arranged in patterns, form a mosaic of the most 

 exquisite delicacy and beauty. The upper jaws or 

 mandibles are no longer to be recognised ; but the 

 lower jaws are produced to an extreme length and 

 slenderness, and being placed side by side, form a 

 double tube, through which the nectar of flowers 

 is pumped up, but which, when not in use, is 

 rolled up in a spire of very small compass. The 

 larvcs are commonly known by the name of cater- 

 pillars ; they have a soft cylindrical body, three 

 pairs of horny feet, and from four to ten false feet, 

 or clingers, on the hind parts of the body, each 

 composed of a circle of minute hooks on a fleshy 

 projection. In most cases they feed on the leaves 

 of plants ; a few devour the wood of living trees, 

 in which they burrow, and some eat wool, fur, skin, 

 fat, and wax. The pupa, called a chrysalis, is mo- 

 tionless, except an occasional slight wriggling of the 

 abdomen, having the limbs folded down and covered 



/J, lepis, a scale, and *rtov, pteron, a wing. 



