A JAJMAICAN FOEEST, 177 



by which great groups are linked together. Every one 

 would say, on looking at it, that it is a butterfly, and yet 

 it possesses the technical characters of a inoth. 



At a certain season, in Jamaica, viz., in the first week 

 of April, with very accurate regularity, this magnificent 

 insect suddenly appears in great numbers. The avo9ada 

 pear, a kind of Laurus, whose fruit is much esteemed, is 

 then in blossom, and is the centre of attraction to these 

 butterflies. As the approaching sun is casting a glow of 

 gold over the eastern sky, one after another begins to 

 come, and by the time the glorious orb emerges from the 

 horizon, the lovely living gems are fluttering by scores, or 

 even by hundreds, around some selected tree. The level 

 sunbeams, glancing on their sparkling wings, give them a 

 lustre which the eye can scarcely look upon ; and, as they 

 dance in their joyousness over the fragrant bloom, engage 

 in the evolutions of playful combats, or mount up on the 

 wing to a height of several hundred feet above the tree, 

 they constitute, in that brief hour of morning, a spectacle 

 which has seemed to me worth years of toil to see. 



If I may aUude to one more memorable incident in my 



own natural-history experience, it shall be the interior of 



a forest in the mountains of Jamaica. From the almost 



insufierable glare of the vertical sunshine, a few steps 



took me into a scene where the gloom was so sombre, — 



heightened doubtless by the sudden contrast, — as to cast 



a kind of awe over the spirit. Yet it was a beauteous 



gloom, — rather a subdued and softened light, like that 



which prevails in some old pillared cathedi*al when the 



M 



