3S8 



THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE 



The scales are arranged in rows upon the wings, and overlap 

 one another just like the slates on the roof of a house. 



If we place one of the eyes of this butterfly under the micro- 

 scope, we find that it is made up of a very great number of small 

 eyes, set very closely together, and each with six sides, like the 

 cells of a bee's honey-comb. 



Nearly all insects have similar eye -masses; and very often 

 there are a most astonishing number of separate eyes in each mass. 

 In those of the common house-fly, for instance, there are four 



thousand. That is a 

 great number; but the 

 dragon-fly has twelve 

 thousand, or three times 

 as many. There is a but- 

 terfly, however, which 

 has still more, for in 

 each eye- mass it has 

 seventeen thousand 

 three hundred and 

 fifty-five separate eyes. 

 But, more amazing still, 

 a certain small beetle possesses no fewer than twenty-five thousand 

 and eighty-eight! 



On the head of the butterfly are two long and slender horns, 

 each with a little knob at the tip. Underneath the head is the 

 trunk or proboscis, coiled up tightly, as it always is when it is not 

 being used. The butterfly can uncoil it in a moment, however, 

 and always does so when it wants to suck up the juices of a 

 flower. 



The caterpillar of the peacock butterfly is not nearly so pretty 

 as the butterfly itself. Its whole body is of a dull black colour, 

 with only a few small white spots; while it is covered all over with 

 black spine-like hairs. 



It feeds upon the leaves of the stinging nettle, on which we 

 may often find it in June and July. Not uncommonly we see 

 peacock butterflies early in the spring; such specimens have 

 hibernated through the winter in some sheltered spot. But on 



Peacock Butterfly 



