EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 651 



rous tribes; I shall therefore confine myself to a few of the 

 principal, especially those that distinguish particular tribes 

 and families. Of whole coloured wings — I know none that 

 dazzle the eye of the beholder so much as the upper sur- 

 face of those of Morpho Menelaus and Telemachus: Linne 

 justly observes that there is scarcely any thing in nature 

 that for brightness and splendour can be paralleled with 

 this colour ; it is a kind of rich ultramarine that vies with 

 the deepest and purest azure of the sky ; and what must 

 cause a striking contrast in flight, the prone surface of 

 the wings is as dull and dark as the supine is brilliant, 

 so that one can conceive this animal to appear like a 

 planet in full radiance, and under eclipse, as its wings 

 open and shut in the blaze of a tropical sun : another 

 butterfly, Papilio Ulysses, by its radiating cerulean disk, 

 surrounded on every side by a margin intensely black, 

 gives the idea of light first emerging from primeval ob- 

 scurity; it was probably this idea of light shining in dark- 

 ness that induced Linne to give it the name of the wisest 

 of the Greeks in a dark and barbarous age. I know no 

 insect upon which the sight rests with such untired plea- 

 sure, as upon the lovely butterfly that bears the name of 

 the unhappy Trojan king (P. Priamus); the contrast of 

 the rich green and black of the velvet of its wings with 

 each other, and with the orange of its abdomen, is beyond 

 expression regal and magnificent. But peculiar beauties 

 of colour sometimes distinguish whole tribes as well as 

 individuals. What can be more lovely than that tribe 

 of little butterflies that flit around us every where in 

 our summer rambles, which are called blues, and which 

 exhibit the various tints of the sky ? Lycana Adonis of 

 this tribe scarcely yields to any exotic butterfly in the 



