Beautiful Butterflies. 11,5 



VENUS FRITXLLARY. 



PLATE VII. — FIG, II. 



APILIO, or Argynnis Aphrodite. This is at 

 once the rarest and most beautiful of all the 

 Fritillaries with which we are acquainted, 

 and the name of the ancient goddess of love and beauty 

 has therefore been bestowed upon it. Aphrodite is but 

 another title of that fabulous personage ; it comes from 

 a Greek word signifying froth, because she is said to 

 have been born of the froth of the ocean — a frothy 

 kind of story altogether, and the sooner it is blown 

 away by the wind of truth the better. 



Of this Venus among Butterflies, which is properly 

 an American species, but a single specimen appears to 

 have been taken in England, and that was captured in 

 the summer of 1833, in Upton Wood, a few miles from 

 Leamington, Warwickshire. The lucky captor was 

 James Walhouse, Esq. ; so says Mr. Morris, in whose 

 large and magnificent volume on c British Butterflies' 

 will be found depicted the under sides of the wings of 

 this lovely visitant from the " far west ;" here is his 

 description of them, as far as words can describe such 

 fair and delicate pieces of Almighty workmanship : — 



