22 THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 
analogies with the higher animals ; but the scheme 
of colour is peculiar to the tribe of which these are 
the most beautiful examples. In the Cecropian silk- 
moths, for example, some five or six of which, at 
the time this paper was written, were preening their 
feathery wings on the lichen-covered bark of an 
ancient oak-trunk. The body seems thickly wrapped 
in feathers, and, like the wings, is of an exquisite 
mottled grey, the colour of the natural wool of the 
Cashmere goat. But the legs, antennae, and parts of 
the wings are boldly painted a rich red madder-brown. 
The Indian moon-moth is perhaps the most delicate 
in colouring of all. The wings are of the palest 
green, and as wide as those of a swallow, the tint of 
the aqua-marine. The uniform faint colour is only 
broken by a few crescent spots of a darker tint. But 
the whole of the front edge of the wing is “ bound” 
in velvet, of the colour of dark-red wine. The body 
is wrapped in thick and downy feathers of the 
purest white, from which the soft legs and feet 
emerge, stained to match the claret edging of the 
wing. Across the head, and lying back against the 
dark shoulders, are the fern-shaped antennae of pale 
green. Thus, this lovely creature possesses but 
three hues, — pale green, claret-colour, and white ; but 
these are so graded and distributed, and so modified 
by the contrasted beauty of the texture of the semi- 
transparent wing, the thick and downy body, and the 
delicate flesh-like legs, that the creature seems rather 
the realization of some painter’s dream than one among 
