164 
MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 
SUB-ORDER RHOPALOCERA. The Butterflies. 
The hard and fast lines fixed by naturalists do not really exist in 
Nature. As daylight blends into darkness and night again into day, 
or as the colors of the rainbow softly shade into one another, the 
violet into the blue, and the blue into the green, etc., so the different 
groups of insects pass by almost insensible gradations one into 
another. 
The most noticeable difference between the moths and butterflies 
is in the shape of the antennae, being nearly always pointed in 
the former, and blunt or knobbed at the ends in the latter. This, 
however, is by no means a sure guide, as many of the Sphingkke 
have club-shaped antennae, while the lowest group of the butterflies, 
the Hesperidce , are furnished with antennae having hooked extremities 
with acutely pointed ends. 
None of the butterflies have the wings joined with the loop and 
bristle usually found among the moths. The butterflies are all day- 
flyers, thus differing in their habits in a marked degree from the 
majority of the moths. 
The surface of the eggs of butterflies is often ornamented, while 
the eggs of most of the moths are plain and smooth. The larvae of 
all butterflies, with the exception of a few of the lower species, are 
external feeders, and, unlike the moths, except among the Hesper- 
idce , they spin no cocoons, the naked chrysalis being usually suspended 
from a silken mat by the posterior extremity and either with or with¬ 
out a band of silk about the middle of the body. 
These chrysalides are of various shapes, some angular, others 
bearing spines and horns, while many of them are objects of extreme 
beauty; as handsome as jewels and looking exactly as if embossed 
with gold. The chrysalis stage usually lasts about twenty days, 
although in a number of species the winter is passed in this stage. 
The butterflies, while at rest, usually hold the wings upright, 
back to back, while the same organs in the moths are generally 
folded roof-shape over the abdomen, or expanded flat upon the sup¬ 
port of the insect. In coloring, the butterflies are generally much 
more striking than the moths, their wings being ornamented in many 
