THE SILVER-BLUE BUTTERFLY. 155 
object can come in competition with it. On the 
contrary, the under surface of the same animal ex- 
hibits an example of a species of beauty, resulting 
from a varied combination of the plainest and most 
sober colours, the ground colour being brown, slightly 
streaked with higher shades, and marked by several 
very large ocellated ferruginous spots, with dark rings 
and white pupils. 
Dr Shaw says,—“ If it were not almost bordering 
on temerity to attempt a reason for this striking 
difference between the two surfaces of the same 
insect, one might suppose that this sobriety of 
colouring on the lower side, is intended, in some 
measure, to secure the animal, when sitting at rest 
with its wings closed, from the depredations of 
birds, which are less likely to be attracted in this 
state, than by the full lustre of its expanded 
plumage.” 
It is a native of South America ; the caterpillar 
is very large, and of a yellow colour, thickly beset 
with black spines. 
VOL. I. L 
