WONDERS OF INSECT LIFE. 
179 
The insects in fury and beauty are worthy of this scene. The 
exalted vitality, revealed among the gadflies 
and the mosquitoes, by their thirst of blood, 
is shown in other species by their enchant¬ 
ing colours, their caprices of design, their 
singularities of form, which either astonish us 
or terrify. The Buprestis imperialism proud 
of its green cuirass powdered all over with 
dust of gold, seems to have passed through 
the bowels of the metalliferous earth, and 
enriched itself on the way. The Buprestis 
chrysochlorus, of a yellower green, flutters to 
and fro like a mounted gem. The Arlequin 
of Guiana,—a gigantic mower, armed with 
tremendous antennse and prodigious legs to 
traverse the innumerable obstacles offered by 
the tall herbage,—is marked with black com¬ 
mas on a yellow ground, with inexplicable 
hieroglyphs,—a being doubly strange and 
doubly enigmatic. It singularly reminds us 
of the texture of Indian stuffs, where, for 
the sake of harmonizing colours not usually 
brought side by side, the artist traces a 
number of wavy and broken lines, which 
soften and blend them into complete accord. 
Those gentle and social insects, the 
butterflies, covering the banks with their 
winged tribes, transform the whole prairie 
into an enchanting flowery carpet. The 
butterfly of butterflies, the glorious butterfly 
of Brazil, of a rich azure lit up by shifting 
gleams, softly hovers, in the warm hours, 
above the waters crowned by the imperial 
dome of the blossomy forests. A pacific and splendid creature, it 
seems the innocent king of all the puissant nature. Others, scarcely 
