Sa, 2S 
O94 
BUTTER-BUR. 
top nor bottom exceeding a certain thickness, 
having the true weight or tare of the vessel, dis- 
tinctly marked upon it; with a variety of other 
regulations to prevent frauds, under severe penal- 
ties. Any fraud with regard to the butter, the 
vessel, or its marks, subjects the person con- 
cerned to a forfeiture of £30 for every such 
offence. See articles Cuurnine, Cow, Datry, 
Mitx.—fourcroy, Systéme des Connoissances Chi- 
miques, tom, 1x.—Deyeux and Parmentier, Me- 
moire sur le lait—Thomson’s Chemistry—Ander- 
son’s Agricultural Recreations, vol. iii. and iv.— 
Anderson's Essays on Agriculture—Mid Lothian 
Report, 1795.—Arton’s Treatise on Dairy Husban- 
dry.— Quarterly Journal of Agriculture—Trans- 
actions of the Highland Society. 
BUTTER-BUR. ‘Two species of plants, of the 
tussilago or coltsfoot genus. The common but- 
ter-bur, Zussilago petasites, grows naturally in 
moist meadows and other moist situations in 
Britain. It has both singular habits and a re- 
markable appearance. Its root is perennial, 
white, long, thick, fleshy, and decurrent ; its 
flower-stems are whitish, round, thick, and about 
eight inches in height, and have a few scaly fibres 
in lieu of leaves ; an oval spike of flesh-coloured 
flowers grows on the top of each stem, and blooms 
in March and April; and the leaves rise after 
the flowers have perished, stand singly upon 
white, purple or greenish, hollowed footstalks,— 
are sometimes so enormously large as to measure 
three feet in breadth,—have a roundish form, 
cut into angles on their edges, and indented into 
a cordate shape at the footstalks,—and are dark 
green on their upper surface, and whitish and 
somewhat downy underneath. “The roots,” 
says Miller, “ have a dark-coloured skin, but are 
white within, and have a strong scent, with a hot 
biting taste. They are sudorific, alexipharmic, 
and good for all kinds of fevers, and malignant, 
infectious, and pestilential distempers. They are 
cordial, preventing fainting and shortness of 
breath. A good quantity of them is put into 
the treacle water.” But though these mighty 
properties were once so generally credited as to 
win for the plant the popular name of pestilent- 
wort, they are now believed to be altogether 
fictitious. A hybrid variety of the common spe- 
cies, 7. p. hybrida, grows naturally in the same 
kinds of situations as the normal plant, and has 
usually a height of about 18 inches. When either 
the normal plant or the variety infests a meadow 
or moist pasture, it is both a mischievous and a 
very stubborn weed. The white butter-bur, 7’us- 
silago alba, was introduced to Britain from con- 
tinental Europe towards the close of the 17th 
century. It is rather a pretty plant, of about 
a foot in height, and produces white flowers in 
middle-winter and early spring. 
BUTTER-CUP,—botanically Ranunculus bul- 
bosus, A perennial, tuberous-rooted weed, of the 
crowfoot genus. It is also popularly called crow- 
toe, butter-flower, and upright meadow crowfoot. 
BUTTERFLY. 
It abounds in the meadows and pastures of Great 
Britain, produces a beautiful shining yellow 
flower in May and June, and is almost as com- 
mon and as well known as the meadow daisy. 
Its stem is ramified and usually about a foot 
high; and its flowers are produced at the ends 
of the branches. The whole plant is exceedingly 
acrid, yet loses its acridity by drying. Sheep 
and goats eat it; but horses, cows, and swine re- 
fuse it. Bees are very fond of its flowers—A 
double-flowered variety, /. 6. jflore pleno, has long 
been cultivated in gardens as an ornamental 
plant. Its stem, like that of the normal plant, 
is erect, ramose, and about a foot in height; its 
lower leaves have very long footstalks, and are 
divided into several segments resembling those 
of monkshood; its upper leaves are cut to the 
base into linear segments ; and its flowers come 
out in May, and, if in a shady situation, will 
bloom for about a month. This plant loves mois- 
ture and shade, and is propagated by dividing 
the roots——Another ornamental variety, R. 6. 
bracteatus, was introduced to Britain from the 
Pyrenees. 
BUTTERFLY. The most conspicuous and 
beautiful of the three great divisions of the lepi- 
dopterous order of insects. Linnzeus divided 
the lepidoptera into the three groups of butter- 
flies, sphinx-moths, and true moths, or papilio, | 
sphinx, and phalena; and Latreille adopted his 
groups, and gave them the new and expressive 
names of respectively diwrna or day-fliers, crepus- 
cularva or twilight-fliers, and noctwrna or night- 
fliers. The diwrna or butterflies are distin- 
guished from the other two groups, not only by 
their day-flying habits, but generally by the 
beauty and brilliance of their colours, and always 
by certain peculiarities in their conformation, 
and especially by the particular structure of their 
antenne. In all butterflies, the antennz are 
nearly uniform in their general shape, slender at 
the base and middle, and expanding at the tip 
into a distinct knob or club; while in moths, the 
antenne are incalculably varied in form and 
structure, and always diminish in size from the 
base to the tip. . 
Butterflies are divided by Latreille and most 
modern entomologists into the five families of 
papilionidz, nymphalidze, heliconiidee, lyczenidee, 
and hesperiide. The papilionide comprise the 
genera papilio, zelima, parnassius, thais, pieris, 
pontia, and colias; and they have the antennze 
not hooked at the tip, the anterior legs not ab- 
breviated, but for walking, and alike in both 
sexes, and the pupa angulated, suspended, and 
braced across the middle. The nymphalidee 
comprise the genera cethosia, argynnis, melitzea, 
vanessa, libythea, biblis, nymphalis, and some 
others; and have the middle cell of their lower 
wings closed, their anterior legs abbreviated and 
not fitted for walking, their ungues bifid, and 
their pupa angulated and merely suspended by 
the tail. The heliconiidge comprise the genera 
