THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 21 
It would be difficult to picture a more elegant or 
more interesting sight than the hatching of the 
butterfly-broods in the Insect House during the 
first days of summer heat. The glass cases, filled 
with damp moss and earth, and adorned with portions 
of tree-trunks or plants suited to the habits of the 
moths, are peopled by these exquisite and delicate 
creatures, as one after another separates itself from 
the chrysalis-case in which it has been sleeping all 
the winter, and, fluttering upwards with weak and 
uncertain movements, exposes its beauties to the 
light. The wings of the largest kind, such as the 
great orange-brown “ Atlas ” moth, are as wide as 
those of a missel-thrush ; and the great size of this 
and other species increases the strange likeness to 
bird-forms which is so marked, even in the smaller 
English hawk-moths. The giant moths of the 
tropics, unlike the rest of the insect world, have 
faces and features not devoid of expression. Some 
resemble birds ; others cats. Some are covered with 
long, soft plumage, like the feathers of the marabout, 
or the plumes of swans. Others are wrapped in a 
silky mantle like an Angora kitten, or clothed in 
ermine and sables. The depth and softness of these 
downy mantles make the impulse to stroke them 
suggest itself at once ; yet when the head- keeper 
lifts them from the branch on which they rest, as 
a falconer lifts his hawk, the feeling that they are 
neither moths nor animals, but long-winged birds, is 
equally irresistible. Form and texture suggest endless 
