"This liquid ascended thus during three or four seconds, and then ceased. At the end of an interval of a greater number of seconds, or sometimes after an interval as short, I saw some fresh liquid mounting up along the trunk. But it was straight up the middle of the trunk that it seemed to ascend.
"The Author of Nature has given to insects means of working, which, though very simple, we cannot divine, and which often we are not able even to perceive. Whilst I was observing the trunk of our butterfly, between the columns of liquid which I saw ascending, there were, but more rarely, times when I saw, on the contrary, liquid descending from the base of the trunk to the point. The descending liquid occupied half or two-thirds of the tube. It was no longer difficult to perceive how the butterfly is able to nourish itself on honey, the thickest syrup, and even the most solid sugar. The fluid it sends down is probably very liquid; it drives against the sugar, moistens, and dissolves it. The butterfly pumps this liquid up again when it is charged with sugar, and conducts it along as far as the base of its trunk, and beyond it."
The life of the perfect insect is generally very short. Like nearly all other insects, they die as soon as they have propagated their species. The female lays her eggs, which vary in shape, on the plant which is to nourish her progeny. The colour is also very various, and passes through all sorts of shades. At the moment they are laid, many are covered with a gummy substance, insoluble in water, which serves to stick them on the plant.
In some species the mother lays her eggs on the trunks of trees, and covers them with down or with the hairs which clothe her abdomen, so as to preserve them from cold and damp. She may also hide them entirely under a whitish foamy substance. Some do not lay more than a hundred eggs; others lay some thousands.
To bring the history of the Lepidoptera to an end, it only remains for us to give a sketch of their classification, and to point out some species remarkable, either on account of their beauty or their utility.
We see during the day butterflies flying in our gardens, in meadows full of flowers, or in the alleys of woods. Towards evening, at the sombre hour of twilight, the stroller is sometimes surprised to see pass near him large moths, with a heavy and unequal flight; or, if we go into a garden on a beautiful calm summer's night, bearing a light, we see a crowd of moths flying from all parts towards it.
It is on account of these different hours at which the Lepidoptera show themselves, that naturalists for a long time divided them into diurnal, crepuscular, and nocturnal. This division was simple, convenient, and seemed founded on Nature. Unfortunately, the night fliers of the old authors do not all fly by night: some species, classed by the old naturalists among the crepuscular, or nocturnal, show themselves in the very middle of the day, seeking their food in the hottest rays of the sun. In the regions near the poles they appear during the day, and in other countries they are more or less friends of the twilight.
So as not to multiply methodical divisions, we will confine ourselves to classing the Lepidoptera into two sections.
The first section contains those which fly during the day, which have club-shaped antennæ, and which have their four wings entirely free, and standing perpendicularly [48] when the insect is at rest. They are called Butterflies, or Rhopalocera. This section is divided into a number of families, which comprise many genera. We will content ourselves with calling the attention of the reader to some of the most remarkable of these groups, and to those species which, either on account of their beauty or abundance, strike, or ought to strike, the attention of every one.