7i6 



The Living Animals of the World 



\yell worth noting. The female is consider- 

 ably larger than the male, but in the 

 coloured figure the former has been reduced, 

 owing to the exigencies of space. Mr. A. E. 

 Wallace writes as follows of the capture of 

 the first specimen : — 



" One day about the beginning of January, 

 I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy 

 bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Mus- 

 sa3nda, 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 



PliOlubiiJ. Ediairds] [CiAaborM. 



B.\TH WHITE BUTTERFLY. 



Ah\ays rare in EnylaDd, though common on the Continent. 



J'hcto 1, 11 B. II. Bc,iUaj-\ [SJuffaliJ. 



GEEEX-VEINED WHITE BUTTEHFLV. 

 Tile eal)ljai;e-bntterily refeiied tu on page 715. 



a female, and the day after a fine male. I found it 

 to be as I had expiected, 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 indescrib- 

 able, 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 open- 

 ing 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 headache the rest of 

 the day, so great was the excitement produced by what 

 will aj^pear to most people a very inadequate cause." 



The Skippers, the last family of butterflies, are 

 comparatively stout-bodied insects, with the antennae 

 widely apart at the base, and sometimes forked at the 



tip. They are not numerous in Europe ; the 

 p)rettiest of the British species is perhaps 

 the Peakl-skipper, which measures rather 

 more than an inch across its brown and tawny 

 wings ; the under surface of the hind wings 

 is green, and marked with several clear white 

 spots. 



Moths. 



IMoths are much more numerous than 

 butterflies, and there are about 2,000 different 

 kinds found in the British Islands alone. 

 Consequently we are able to notice only a few. 



The Hawk-imoths have long, pointed 



Phola by J. Edirunh] [Ciilabordc. 



BLACK-VEIXED WHITE BUTTERFLY. 



A niucli laier species in England now tlniu formerly. 



