CHAP. XXIV.] THE CR(ESUS BUTTERFLY. 51 



male flying high in the air at the mining village. I had 

 begun to despair of ever getting a specimen, as it seemed 

 so rare and wild ; till one day, about the beginning of 

 January, I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy 

 bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Musstenda, and saw 

 one of these noble insects hovering over it, but it was too 

 quick for me, and flew away. The next day I went again 

 to the same shrub and succeeded in catching a female, and 

 the day after a fine male. I found it to be as I had expected, 

 a perfectly new and most magnificent species, and one of 

 the most gorgeously coloured butterflies in the world. 

 Fine specimens of the male are more than seven inches 

 across the wings, which are velvety black and fiery orange, 

 the latter colour replacing the green of the allied species. 

 The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescribable, 

 and none but a naturalist can understand the intense 

 excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. 

 On taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, 

 my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my 

 head, and I felt much more like fainting than I have done 

 when in apprehension of immediate death. I had a head- 

 ache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement 

 produced by what will appear to most people a very 

 inadequate cause. 



I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two 

 more, but this gxand capture determined me to stay on tUl 



e2 



