922 Marvels of the Universe 
ending pageant of brilliancy, these fishes have their moments of anxiety and bursts of wild excite- 
ment. They spend their lives, indeed, in eating their smaller and endeavouring to avoid being 
eaten by their larger neighbours. Some, like the Wrasses and the Giant Serranus, are formidable 
foes indeed. One of the latter is the so-called Rifle-fish. Not only is it extremely ferocious and 
gorgeously coloured, but it is further said to be able to bring down prey from the upper world 
by jets of water expelled from the mouth. We repeat the story, but do not believe it has any 
foundation in fact ! 
MINUTE DETAILS OF BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 
BY JOHN J. WARD, F.E.S. 
THERE are more wonders in a butterfly or a moth than at first meet the eye. The charming forms 
and bright colours of these insects gratify our esthetic tastes so completely that we are apt to forget 
those wonderful details of anatomy by which such pleasing effects are produced. Let us, therefore, 
by means of the microscope, look a little more deeply into the mechanism of these familiar insects. 
The head of a butterfly or moth is largely composed of four pairs of organs: The two large 
eye-masses, the two feathery palps in front of the “ face,’”’ a pair of antenne or feelers, and a long 
coiled sucking tongue, or proboscis, consisting of two marvellously-constructed tubes, which can be 
separated and united at the insect’s pleasure. 
Considering the eye-masses first, we find that each of these is composed of an infinite number of 
six-sided facets, or lenses; 
indeed, each facet represents a 
perfect eye in itself, being the 
base of a lens-like pyramid, 
whose apex is directed towards 
the interior, terminating at 
the extremity of the optic 
nerve. It is, therefore, able 
to receive an image of an 
external object and focus it 
on the retina, just as a camera 
lens produces a picture on a 
photographic plate. Also, each 
pyramid-lens is coated on the 
sides with a dark pigment ; 
it therefore acts quite in- 
dependently of the others. 
From the human _ standpoint, 
the question then arises why 
an insect should need _ so 
aaihy INGE Ti mS ~ Qe” ” 
Does it see thousands of ob- 
jects with each eye-mass, or 
only one? There is doubt- 
. .., less an answer to the question, 
SA Pes RAR SIGE eR ARTO Te EC but probably man will never 
know it; for his nervous or- 
Very delicate is this beautiful apparatus which enables the Moth to gather 
the honey hidden in the deep recesses of tubular flowers. ganization is so different from 
