98 Beautiful Butterflies. 



danger to liberty and life. Mr. Morris tells us of 

 one collector who stated that he took as many as 

 one hundred specimens in the county of Essex in a 

 fortnight! What an arch regicide he must have 

 been. Who ever heard of such a king-killer as this ? 

 One hundred crowned heads in a fortnight ! Here 

 was a wardrobe ! ten times ten sets of royal robes. 

 Bah ! we do not like to think about it ; so many beau- 

 tiful insects deprived of life ; so many bright flutterers 

 stopped in the mid career of their enjoyment, for what? 

 to satisfy a mania, as in too many instances the ento- 

 mological furor may truly be called. May be he did it 

 for profit ; he dealt in Butterflies, and so depopulated 

 the glades of Emperors to increase the value of his 

 stock-in-trade. Well, we scarcely know that any valid 

 objection can be offered to this ; all we can say is, that 

 we hope no such necessity for obtaining a livelihood 

 will ever be laid upon us. We would not have such an 

 amount of insect slaughter upon our consciences for all 

 the Butterflies in the British Museum, much as we 

 should delight in the possession of a good collection 

 of these most beautiful of the works of the Almighty 

 Creator. 



The scientific name of this fly is a bit of puzzle. 

 Apatao, in Greek, means I cheat, trick, or beguile; 

 hence Apaturia was the name of a festival at Athens, 

 instituted in remembrance of a stratagem, by which 



