

INTRODUCTORY. 



Butterflies belong to the great Order of insects called 

 Lepidoptera (Greek lepis, a scale, and pteron, a wing), that is, 

 insects whose wings are covered with minute structures termed 

 scales. Moths (Heterocera) also belong to the same order, 

 and the first point to deal with is how may butterflies be 

 distinguished from moths ? In a broad kind of way they may 

 be recognized by their horns (antennce), which are slender as 

 regards the shaft, but are gradually or abruptly clubbed at the 

 extremity. For this reason they were designated Rhopalocera, 

 or "club horned," the Heterocera being supposed to have 

 horns of various kinds other than clubbed. As a matter of 

 fact this method of separating moths and butterflies does not 

 hold good in dealing with the Lepidoptera of the world, and 

 it is from a study of these, as a whole, that systematists have 

 arrived at the conclusion that there is no actual line of division 

 between moths and butterflies. In modern classification, then, 

 butterflies are reduced from the rank of a sub-order, which 

 they formerly held, and are now dovetailed into the various 

 newer systems of arrangement between certain families of moths. 



As regards British butterflies, however, it will be found that 

 these may be known, as such, by their clubbed horns. Only the 

 Burnets among British moths have horns in any way similar, 

 and these are thickened gradually towards the extremity rather 



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