THE SWALLOW TAIL. 121 



form and colouring, than any others which our island produces. 

 Perhaps, in favour of its richer painting, we ought to have 

 given it the precedence usually assigned it over our favourite 

 Brimstone, with all its simple elegance ; but besides being of 

 later, it is also of more rare appearance, and we have a pre- 

 ference always for bespeaking attention to the beautiful things 

 that are most common, rather than to those which cross our 

 path less often. If, however, that path should lead us through 

 the counties of Hampshire, Middlesex, Cambridge, or Norfolk, 

 we are not unlikely, from May to August, to meet the Swallow 

 Tail ; and he is a Papilio, we can tell you, much too distin- 

 guished to pass by unrecognised, if we can possibly prevent 

 his cutting, at once, the air and our acquaintance.* 



Compared with the Brimstone he is truly a magnificent 

 bashaw ; but then, in the place of four, he can only boast him- 

 self of a pair of tails, of a peculiar fashion, appended to his 

 hinder wings, which are scalloped, and adorned each with a 

 red, eye-like spot, their prevailing colours being, like the an- 

 terior ones, black and yellow a fitting case for the unfolding, 

 while latent, of so much beauty. The caterpillar of the Swal- 

 low Tail Butterfly is one of the handsomest of its race. It has 

 a smooth skin, beautifully variegated with black and green, 

 and carries, at the back of its head, a badge of distinction, 

 not however always visible, in the shape of a flexible horn, 

 forked like the letter Y, which, contrary to the usage of the 

 snail, it is said to put forth on occasions of alarm. It is a 



