274 
TROPICAL NATURE 
in 
others long and pointed. Many have double or triple tails, 
and some of the smaller species have them immensely elon- 
gated and often elegantly curled. In some groups the wings 
are long and narrow, in others strongly falcate ; and though 
many fly with immense rapidity, a large number flutter lazily 
along, as if they had no enemies to fear, and therefore no 
occasion to hurry. 
The number of species of butterflies inhabiting any one 
locality is very variable, and is, as a rule, far larger in 
America than in the Eastern hemisphere ; but it everywhere 
very much surpasses the numbers in the temperate zone. A 
few months’ assiduous collecting in any of the Malay islands 
will produce from 150 to 250 species of butterflies, and thirty 
or forty species may be obtained any fine day in good locali- 
ties. In the Amazon valley, however, much greater results 
may be achieved. A good day’s collecting will produce from 
forty to seventy species, while in one year at Para about 600 
species were obtained. More than 700 species of butterflies 
actually inhabit the district immediately around the city of 
Para, and this, as far as we yet know, is the richest spot on 
the globe for diurnal lepidoptera. At Ega, during four years’ 
collecting, Mr. Bates obtained 550 species, and these, on the 
whole, surpassed those of Para in variety and beauty. Mr. 
Bates thus speaks of a favourite locality on the margin of the 
lake near Ega : “ The number and variety of gaily-tinted 
butterflies, sporting about in this grove on sunny days, were 
so great that the bright moving flakes of colour gave quite a 
character to the physiognomy of the place. It was impossible 
to walk far without disturbing flocks of them from the damp 
sand at the edge of the water, where they congregated to 
imbibe the moisture. They were of almost all colours, sizes, 
and shapes ; I noticed here altogether eighty species, belonging 
to twenty-two distinct genera. The most abundant, next to 
the very common sulphur-yellow and orange-coloured kinds, 
were about a dozen species of Eunica, which are of large size 
and conspicuous from their liveries of glossy dark blue and 
purple. A superbly adorned creature, the Callithea markii, 
having wings of a thick texture, coloured sapphire-blue and 
orange, was only an occasional visitor. On certain days, when 
the weather was very calm, two small gilded species (Sym- 
