MR.  W.  S.  MACLEAY  ON  THE  NATURAL  HISTORY  OF  URANIA.  189 
In  a  work  which  by  the  old  Linnaean  school  was  long  reckoned  of  classical  authority, 
but  of  which  later  and  more  accurate  researches  have  demonstrated  the  dangerous 
worthlessness, — I  mean  Madame  Merian's  drawings  of  the  insects  of  Surinam  ^ — we 
find  the  following  description  of  an  insect  which,  to  judge  from  the  figure,  has  been 
since  described  as  Papilio  or  Ur.  Leilus. 
"  Insident  arboribus,  virentemque  earum  depascunt  frondem  erucee  virides,  quibus 
caput  coeruleum,  corpus  est  pilis  oblongis  onustum,  ferreo  filo  non  mollioribus. 
Die  3  Augusti  coeperunt  agglutinari,  in  aurelias  ex  spadiceo  maculatas  dein  permu- 
tatse ;  unde  ejusdem  mensis  die  19  tam  venustse  exierunt  papiliones,  variis  pictse  colo- 
ribus,  nigro,  viridi,  coeruleo  et  albo,  atque  auri  et  argenti  instar  fulgentes;  adeo  veloces 
autem  et  altivolantes,  ut  vix  nisi  per  erucarum  metamorphosin  capi  possint  illaesae." 
This  last  sentence  is  without  doubt  a  good  description  of  the  flight  of  Urania,  and 
perhaps  the  whole  paragraph  may  be  true  of  Ur.  Leilus  ;  but  I  must  observe  that  the 
larva  of  Ur.  Fernandince  has  no  resemblance  to  Madame  Merian's  figure  of  that  of 
Ur.  Leilus"^.  It  is  not  green,  has  not  a  blue  head :  and  so  far  from  the  hairs  which 
cover  its  body  being  as  hard  as  iron-wire,  they  are  delicately  soft  and  slender,  and  only 
moderately  long.  The  larva  of  Ur.  Fernandinee  does  not  glue  itself  to  anything,  but  it 
spins  an  oval  cocoon  of  dirty  yellow  silk,  of  which  the  threads  are  so  lax,  that  the 
chrysalis  remains  visible  through  the  meshes.  Thus,  so  far  as  the  metamorphosis  is 
concerned,  there  is  scarcely  any  resemblance  between  Madame  Merian's  description  of 
Ur.  Leilus  and  that  which  I  have  given  of  Ur.  Fernandince.  I  do  not  say  that  the  lady 
may  not  possibly  in  this  particular  instance  have  been  faithful  to  Nature  ;  but  knowing 
how  little  she  deserves  to  be  believed  on  other  points,  and  indeed  having  scarcely  ever 
to  the  distribution  of  Lepidoptera;  but  I  am  not  aware  that  any  subsequent  person  has  acted  upon  it  except  my 
ingenious  and  active  friend  M.  Poey,  who  in  his  excellent  '  Centurie  de  Lepidopttires  de  ITle  de  Cuba'  has 
generally  given  a  representation  of  the  neuration  of  the  wings  au  trait  M'ith  each  species  figured.  Still  M.  Poey, 
like  his  predecessors,  has  not  ventured  to  make  any  use  of  these  important  considerations  in  his  descriptions, — 
a  circumstance  only  to  be  attributed  to  his  being  duly  sensible  of  our  wanting  that  sufficiently  valid  generali- 
zation which  can  alone  put  the  use  of  these  organs  of  the  wing  within  our  power,  either  for  analysis  or  syn- 
thesis. I  shall  be  reminded,  indeed,  that  Messrs.  Kirby  and  Spence  have  attempted  to  remedy  this  deficiency 
in  their  valuable  '  Introduction' ;  but  it  can  scarcely  excite  surprise  if  these  learned  entomologists,  among  such 
a  vast  multitude  of  subjects  for  their  attention,  should  be  found  to  have  still  left  much  to  be  done  with  respect 
to  the  generalization  of  the  Lepidopterous  wing. 
'  The  original  drawings  of  this  work  are,  I  believe,  in  the  British  Museum,  and  in  the  late  Dr.  Shaw's  time 
used  to  be  considered  among  its  choicest  treasures.  Cuvier,  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  '  Regne  Animal,'  calls 
the  work  itself  a  posthumous  one,  which,  if  true,  might  make  us  suspect  that  some  portion  of  its  faults  ought 
to  be  assigned  to  the  ignorance  of  its  editor;  but  according  to  Messrs.  Kirby  and  Spence,  there  is  an  Amster- 
dam edition  of  1705,  that  is,  twelve  years  prior  to  Madame  Merian's  death. 
-  This  indeed  seems  to  be  a  compound  between  a  caterpillar  and  a  Cermatia,  and  I  have  not  the  least  doubt 
is  quite  an  imaginary  being.  I  judge  from  a  traced  outline  which  Dr.  Horsfield,  at  my  request,  has  had  the 
goodness  to  send  me  from  England. 
2  c  2 
