THE BUTTERFLY. 
129 
manner, so that each wing presents us with two 
separate pictures. 
If you would like to know how the contrast 
and effect of colors is produced, you must 
look at one of the wings through a microscope. 
To the naked eye it seems as if it were covered 
with dust; hut under the glass, you will see 
that each particle of dust is a minute scale 
or plume. These plumes are all manner of 
shapes and colors; and in them reside the 
lovely tints that so please the eye. They are 
mounted upon little footstalks like quills, and 
if you were lightly to rub the dust from the 
wing, you could trace the minute holes into 
which they fitted, and that look like lines of 
innumerable dots. The dots run in a slanting 
manner from one side of 
the wing to the other; and 
those on the under-side 
sometimes cross those on 
the upper, and so form a 
lozenge-shaped pattern. 
Thousands upon thou¬ 
sands of these tiny plumes 
clothe the wing of the 
butterfly; and they are set 
so close together, that one 
row rests upon the next, and overlaps it like the 
Scales of wings. 
