LEPIDOPTERA. 171 
forming sometimes curious designs; the third plate, viz., that 
which is applied to the membrane of the wing, has the peculiar 
property of reflecting colours the most brilliant and the most 
varied, although the surface of the scales visible to the eye is 
often dull and colourless. : 
“Supposing,” says M. Bernard Deschamps, “that a painter was 
possessed of colours rich enough to represent on canvas with all 
their splendour, gold, silver, the opal, the ruby, the sapphire, the 
emerald, and the other precious stones which the East produces, 
that with these colours he formed all the shades which could 
result from their combination, one might affirm without the chance 
of contradiction, that he would have none of these colours and of 
their various shades, whatever might be the number, which could 
not be discovered by the microscope on part of the scales of the 
Lepidoptera, which nature has been pleased to conceal from our 
gaze.” . 
Hach of these scales adheres to the membrane of the wing by a 
small tube, which is solidly fixed to it. Réaumur has called our 
attention to the admirable arrangement of these scales, which are 
disposed like those of fish, 
that is to say, in such a 
manner that those of a row 
shall partially overlap those 
in the following one. 
In Fig. 134, representing 
a portion of the wing of 
the Saturnia pavonia-mapor, 
magnified, which we borrow 
from Réaumur’s memoir, 
the scales are arranged in 

rows; isolated scales, and Fig. 134.—Portion of the wing of a Moth (Saturnia 
the pointswhere other scales pag 
were fixed before they were taken off, are represented. 
The membranous frame which supports the coloured scales of 
butterflies and moths is well worth a moment’s consideration. It 
consists of two membranes intimately united by their interior 
surfaces, and divided into many distinct parts by horny, fistulous 
threads, more or less ramified, which seem intended to support 
