THE MEMORABLE. 



darted by, would almost persuade one that he 

 was on enchanted ground. Spell-bound, whilst 

 witnessing the grotesque gambols of this singular 

 bird, there only wanted Puck, with his elfin crew, 

 attendant fairies, &c, in connexion with the 

 aerial flights of the fern-owl, to have made it, as 

 it was to me, a tolerably complete 'Midsummer 

 Night's Dream,' especially as the fever of my 

 night-haunted imagination had not as yet van- 

 ished. As it was, I was delighted with this noc- 

 turnal and beautiful scene from nature, and I 

 wished at the time that some of our museum 

 naturalists had been with me, to have shared the 

 pleasure that I felt.'** 



The entomological cabinets of Europe have long 

 counted as one of their most prized treasures, a 

 gorgeous butterfly named Onuthoptera Prianms. 

 Linnaeus named those butterflies which are in- 

 cluded by modern naturalists under the family 

 Papihonidm, Equites; and he divided them into 

 Greeks and Trojans, naming each individual spe- 

 cies after some one of the Homeric heroes, choos- 

 ing a name from the Trojan list, if black was a 

 prominent colour, as if mourning for a defeat, and 

 from the Greeks if the prevailing hues were gay. 

 The one I speak of was called after the king of 

 Ilium, because it was the finest species of the 

 butterfly then known. It is found only in Am- 

 boyna ; its elegant wings expand fully eight inches, . 

 and they are splendidly coloured with the richest 

 emerald green and velvety black. 



Other species of the same noble genus have re- 

 cently been discovered in the same Archipelago; 

 but the Trojan monarch remained without a 

 rival. About a year ago, however, Mr. A. K. 

 Wallace, an accomplished entomologist, and one 

 * Zoologist, p. 3650. 

 181 



