CHAPTER III. 



Jointed Animals, — continued. 



Insects, — continuet I. 



Butterflies and Moths,— Order Lepidoptera. 





PIKE HAWK-MOTH WITH I.AKV.i: AND PUPA. 



The beautiful insects comprehended in the order to which the name Lepidoptera 

 or scale-wings has been given are familiar to the majority of readers without any 

 lengthened introductory description. The butterflies, or Rhopalocera, and the 

 moths, or Heterocera, though they form two distinct sections of the order, cannot 

 be divided by any hard-and-fast lines. They may generally be distinguished from 



one another by the manner of the folding of the wings at rest, or 1 ■•■ precisely by 



the different character of the antennas. The wings of the moths, too, are locked 

 together by a tiny hook on the inner margin of one wing fitting into an eye on 

 the inner margin of the other. The butterflies never possess this curious structure. 

 The Lepidoptera are easily distinguishable from other orders of insects by the 

 four ample wings, with more or less regular veins or nervures, clothed with the 

 minutest, exquisitely-chiseled scales, of many shapes, and greal variety of external 

 chasing. These scales are 1>nt modified forms of hairs, broadened out, flattened 

 and fashioned to cover the delicate membrane of the wing with an overlapping 

 armament of beauty. And it is to this wondrous sculptured dust, breaking up the 



