33 NATURAL HISTORY. 



for the purpose. The boxes or cabinet-drawers must be lined with cork, and the tatter are usually 

 provided with tightly-fitting glazed lids. Any box used for insects should be tightly-fitting, and 

 furnished with plenty of camphor, or mites and other pests will soon reduce your collection to dust. 

 Many preventives have been recommended, but camphor, plentifully used, and the supply well kept 

 up from the first, appears to be the most successful of all. Butterflies in glass cases would form a 

 very pretty ornament on the wall ; but although they will preserve their colours for more than a 

 century if kept in the dark, they bleach very rapidly if constantly exposed to the light. 



You will find Butterflies and many Moths flying in gardens and other places where there are 

 plenty of flowers, and these may be captured with the net. As it grows dusk the Butterflies 

 disappear, but the Moths become more numerous, and they may be caught in the same way until it 

 grows too dark. Later in the evening it is a good plan to daub over the trunks of trees with some 

 sweet compound a mixture of brown sugar and beer, flavoured with a few drops of rum, is most 

 commonly employed and afterwards visit the trees with a lantern and catch the Moths which 

 are attracted by the bait. This mode of collecting is called "sugaring," and is somewhat uncertain, as 

 on some nights the sugar will be covered with Moths, and on others you will scarcely find one. 



In the country many Moths may be attracted by a light placed at an open window. During the 

 day you will not see many Moths, except those which are habitually day-flying species, but if you 

 look about a little you will sometimes find Moths sitting on the shady side of the trunks of trees, 

 especially early in the day, and by beating a hedge to windward you will generally dislodge a great 

 variety, chiefly slender-bodied or small Moths, which you can catch as they fly out. 



There are no Butterflies to be found on the wing during the depth of winter, but there are 

 several species of Moths which only appear at this season of the year, and a considerable variety may 

 be caught in the evening, both in early spring and late autumn, at the blossoms of the sallow and 

 the ivy respectively. 



CHAPTER X. 



BUTTERFLIES. 



The Brash-footed Butterflies Butterflies distasteful to Birds Mimicry Transparent-winged Butterflies of South 

 America Brown Butterflies frequenting Marshes and Meadows Silvery Butterfly from Chili The Great Blue 

 Butterflies of South America Great Owl-like Butterflies Flying at Twilight An African Group of Spotted Butterflies- 

 Passion Flower Butterflies of South America The Fritillaries The Comma Butterfly Leaf Butterflies Dissimilarity 

 of the Sexes in some Butterflies Red, Blue, and Green Butterflies of South America- Elegant Flight of the White 

 Admiral Lofty Flight of the Purple Emperor Long-snouted Butterflies A large Group of Small and Elegant Butterflies 

 almost peculiar to South America Copper Butterflies Small Blues Hairstreaks Long Tails of some of the Allied 

 Eastern Species The White and Yellow Butterflies Some of this Group Brightly Coloured Mimicking South 

 American Butterflies Small and Large Yellow Butterflies of the Tropics Garden Whites White Indian Butterflies 

 with Bed Spots on the Under side Indian Butterflies with the Front of the Wing Ridged like a Saw The Brimstone 

 and Clouded Yellow Butterflies Orange-tips Swallow-tailed Butterflies The Apollo Butterflies Magnificent Tailed 

 Butterflies from the Himalayas The Great Bird-winged Butterflies of the East A Croesus among Butterflies South 

 American Butterflies with Iridescent Spots Mimicking Butterflies again Gold-dusted Butterflies Great Blue Butter- 

 flies of the Eastern Islands The True Swallow-tailed Butterflies Extraordinary Difference between the Sexes of an 

 African Butterfly Very Long Tails of a Small Indian Group The Skippers Their Resemblance to the Moths Tailed 

 Skippers of South America The Fire-tailed Skippers The Grizzled Skipper The Pearl Skipper. 



THE first five families of Lepidoptera are called Butterflies in England, and their antennae are nearly 

 always thickened into a knob at the extremity. All the European species, and the great majority of 

 the foreign ones, fly only by day, though some species prefer the shades of the forests, and some 

 tropical Butterflies fly only at dusk. There is reason to believe that others fly more or less at night, 

 but this requires to be confirmed by further observations. 



FAMILY I. NYMPHALIDJE. 



Half the known Butterflies belong to the first family, that of the Nymplialidce, which is divided 

 into several sub-families. The front legs of these Butterflies are rudimentary in both sexes, forming a 



