140 THE BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM. 



its metamorphosis, the second on the cloth-like or 

 sail-like texture and form of the wings. 



Our own term Butterfly — a term which exists in 

 the Saxon and Flemish in nearly the same form, 

 and with precisely the same meaning — has no doubt 

 arisen from a buttery kind of softness in the wings 

 of this class of insects, the surface of Avhich, from 

 the nature of the minute scales, gives way under 

 the touch exactly as the surface of hutter does, 

 though from another cause. That a certain kind of 

 softness was often compared to butter we have an 

 instance in the well-known passage in the Psalms, 

 "his words are softer than hutter;" — and many 

 similar examples might be cited. 



The French term, Papillon, is directly derived 

 from the Latin Papilio, and applied both to Butter- 

 flies and Moths, the latter being merely dis- 

 tinguished as Papillons de nuit, or night Butterflies, 

 the French language possessing no term precisely 

 equivalent to our " Moth." 



Among the group of Butterflies represented as 

 established in our Insect Vivarium, in Plate II., 

 the first is the well-known Peacock Butterfly, 

 Vanessa Io, whose brilliant colouring makes him a 

 general favourite. It was this Butterfly, more espe- 

 cially, whose wings were assigned to Psyche by the 



