26 THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 
beautiful, fawn-coloured, with bold wavy lines of 
black, grey, and pink. The Promethean silk-moth 
has a larva of pale Cambridge blue, with yellow and 
crimson studs. Not even the sea anemones in their 
native waters are more beautiful than these fugitive 
forms assumed by the undeveloped silk-moths of the 
East. 
In their scheme of colour, the butterflies are to the 
moths what the fabrics of Europe are to the webs of 
Cashmere or the carpets of Daghestan. A score of the 
lovely swallow-tailed butterfly may often be seen flut- 
tering in their cage. The bottom of their glass man- 
sion is covered with short pieces of osier-stick, each 
one of which is pierced up the centre with a tunnel, 
at the end of which lies the pupa of that strange 
instance of protective mimicry, the hornet clear-wing. 
Another case is full of the scarce pale variety of the 
swallow-tail, and a third of the American swallow-tail, 
the female of which is black, spangled with what 
seems a shining dust of sapphires. But perhaps the 
most beautiful of all the butterfly broods is the swarm 
of Papilio Cresphontes. At the time of hatching, the 
case is full of these lovely butterflies, black above, 
with beaded spots of pale yellow ; yellow below, with 
beaded lines of black. When last seen by the writer, 
some were flying from side to side of the cage ; some 
had alighted, or were in the act of alighting, and 
others on the moss at the bottom were sipping the 
juices of ripe grapes. 
Among the butterfly cages is a glass case which, 
