3i8 the living animals of the world 
Photo by J, Edwards'] [^Colesborne 
BATH WHITE BUTTERFLY 
Common or, the Continent of Europe 
a female, and the day after a fine male. I found it 
to be as I had expected, a perfectly new and most 
magnificent species, and one of the most gorgeously 
coloured butterflies in the world. Fine specimens of 
the male are more than seven inches across the 
wings, which are velvety black and fiery orange, the 
latter colour replacing the green of the allied species. 
The beauty and brilliancy of this insect are indescrib- 
able, and none but a naturalist can understand the 
intense excitement I experienced when I at length 
captured it. On taking it out of my net and open- 
ing the glorious wings, my heart began to beat violently, 
the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more 
like fainting than I have done w'hen in apprehension 
of immediate death. I had a headache the rest of 
the day, so great w^as the excitement produced by what 
will appear to most people a very inadequate cause.” 
The Skippers, the last family of butterflies, are 
comparatively stout-bodied insects, with the antennas 
w'idely apart at the base, and sometimes forked at the 
Photo by 5 , H, Bentley] [^Shepield 
GREEN-VEINED WHITE BUTTERFLY 
Tie cabbage-butterjiy referred to on page 7/5 
Photo ty J. Edwards] yColeshorne 
BLACK-VEINED WHITE BUTTERFLY 
tip. They are not numerous in Europe; the 
prettiest of the British species is perhaps 
the Pearl-skipper, w’hich measures rather 
more than an inch across its brown and tawny 
w'ings ; the under surface of the hind wings 
is green, and marked wdth several clear w'hite 
spots. 
Moths 
Moths are much more numerous than 
butterflies, and there are about 2,000 different 
kinds found in the British Islands alone. 
Consequently we are able to notice only a few 
The Hawk-moths have long, pointed 
well worth noting. The female is consider- 
ably larger than the male, but in the 
coloured figure the former has been reduced, 
owing to the exigencies of space. Mr. A. R. 
Wallace writes as follows of the capture of 
the first specimen : — 
“One day about the beginning of January, 
I found a beautiful shrub with large white leafy 
bracts and yellow flowers, a species of Mus- 
ssnda, and saw one of these noble insects 
hovering over it, but it was too quick for me, 
and flew away. The next day I went again 
to the same shrub and succeeded in catching 
