72 
BLUEFIELDS. 
is indeed the case with a large proportion of the speci- 
mens that one sees, the slender delicate tails of the 
wings being often broken off long before the downy 
surface is at all defaced. After a few mornings, 
though the numbers did not seem diminished, they 
were evidently grown more wary, and difficult to net. 
Except that a few individuals would occasionally 
hover round the Mango-trees that grew near, I have 
not found that the species affects, at least in numbers, 
any plant but the Persea : though many fruit-trees 
besides were blossoming at the same time. 
These beautiful butterflies occasionally fly at a great 
elevation, far beyond that which has procured, for our 
finest British insect, the title of Purple High-flyer. 
I almost hesitate to say how high, yet I think I do 
not at all exceed the truth when I say I have seen 
them soar away over the open field to a height of 
500 feet, when they were just visible as moving 
specks of black against the bright sky. They thus 
fully justify their name of Urania (heavenly). May 
not the human draw an instructive moral from 
the heavenward soaring of its insect symbol ? 
When one alights, unless it is to suck the blossoms, 
it chooses a leaf, or other surface, that is nearly 
vertical, and instantly turns head-downward, and 
rests with the wings expanded in the plane of the 
body ; the anterior pair, however, inclined backwards, 
so as to form an angle with each other, and partly 
covering the posterior ones. They chase each other 
about playfully ; half a dozen or more sometimes 
joining in the gambols, when their wings glitter in 
the sun like the plumage of the Humming-birds. 
