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elegant and beautiful ; it is quite common^ and is fond of 
settling on flowers^ especially 8yngenesia, by roadsides^ &c. 
where it may easily be caught. It continues with us till 
the latter part of September or October. 
C. — Another little butterfly;, but of humbler pretensions 
has likewise appeared. It is the Yellow-spotted Skipper 
( Hesperia Peckius ), 
F, — The family of butterflies known by the name of 
Skippers, have in the thickness and clumsiness of their 
bodies^ as much resemblance to moths as to butterflies. I 
have sometimes amused myself by tracing the close affinities 
which exist between members of tribes, that appear at first 
sight widely different, and by observing the very minute gra- 
dations by which nature delights to step from one to another. 
Let us look at a few of these in the organs of flight ; besides 
the thickness of body just alluded to, what a close resem- 
blance of shape is there between the wings of the Hesperim 
and the Noctuce, so that when dead and expanded, it would 
not be easy for a young naturalist to tell whether the speci- 
men were a butterfly or a moth. On the other hand, an 
equally close similarity exists between the Geometrce and 
butterflies : the delicacy of form and breadth of wing is the 
same ; the butterfly flies by day, the geometra does the 
same ; the butterfly erects its wings when at rest ; nothing 
is more common than to see a geometra with closed erected 
wings : here we have resemblance in points, which are con- 
sidered generic distinctions. How closely do the Hawk- 
moths approach the Fhalcence, through the subdivision 
Zygcena ! But for a far closer affinity, and between orders 
apparently very remote from each other, look at Lepidoptera 
and Hymenoptera, So exactly do many of the hawk-moths 
of the division Mgeria resemble hymenopterous flies, that 
even an entomologist may be deceived at the distance of not 
more than a yard. The transparent wings, often with 
K 
