In contemplating such objects, we cannot help concurring in the sentiments expressed by the pious Ray:—"Quæri fortasse à nonnullis potest, quis Papilionum usus sit? Respondeo, Ad ornatum universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint: ad rura illustranda velut tot bracteæ inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varietatem contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum elegantias naturæ ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosis oculis intuens, divinæ artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et miretur?" And I may add, since such exquisite traces of loveliness remain in a world which Satan has spoiled and sin defiled, what must have been its glory when He who made it could take complacency in beholding it, and in the minutest details could pronounce it "very good!"
The Rev. James Smith of Monquhitter thus alludes to the exquisite beauty of some South American butterflies. One or two of the species I have already alluded to, but even these can yield additional themes of admiration. "I hold," he says, "that there are hues and shades of colour which are positively beautiful in themselves, and independently of all associations whatever; and to look upon which merely as patches of colour, affords a gratification of no mean description. And for the truth of such an opinion, I know not where I should obtain a stronger and a more pleasing proof, than from the Lepidoptera to which I have alluded. The patch, for instance, which is on the posterior wings of the Hætera Esmeralda, and which may be characterised as a compound of carmine and of the deepest blue dotted with two spots of vermilion, will in itself, and irrespectively of association, communicate a pleasure to every eye which looks upon it. The band of silver blue on the wing of a large Morpho; the deep tone, to speak in pictorial phrase, of the black in the Papilio Sesostris, finer even than the finest velvet of Genoa; the rich dark orange on Epicilia Ancæa; the blue, shining in one unnamed species like polished steel, in another (Thecla) with a radiant clearness, which ultramarine itself could not surpass; the satin-like golden green, the pearly lustrous white, and the deep shining emerald ribbons in Urania Boisduvalii; the crimson lines and spots deeper and clearer than blood, in a species to which no name is attached, of Papilio; the small spangles of silver with which the under surface of one of the least among them (Cupido) is, as it were, incrusted; the iridescent and delicate violet with which, on the same surface, a particular species of Hætera is, so to speak, washed over, in a way which calls to our remembrance the 'scumbling' given by Rembrandt as the finishing touch to his finest productions; all these, and many more, possess a beauty which I contend, in opposition to the doctrine of Alison and Jeffrey, is absolute in itself; which is altogether irrespective of association; and which the most skilful of human pencils would find it impossible completely and properly to copy."[214]
I must apologise to fair readers for alluding to Spiders—"nasty spiders!"—in a chapter on beauty; but prejudice must not make us shut our eyes to glories even among these. In the tropical species there is often metallic splendour and brilliance of colour. In my "Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," my friend Mr Hill has written some very interesting observations on the web of a certain Spider, and on the relations of its structure with that of the Spider itself; but I allude to it now because of the elegance of the creature, the Epeira argentata of Fabricius. The upper surface of the body is of a glistening satiny or silvery whiteness, the belly yellow, spotted with black, and the legs marked with alternate rings of the same contrasted hues.
In the same island I was familiar with another species, (Nephila clavipes,) remarkable for the length and strength of its silken cords. The body, which is lengthened, is studded with round white spots, each encircled with a black border, on a rich greenish brown ground, reminding one of the characteristic markings of the Tragopans among birds. The cephalothorax is shining black, its lustre half concealed by a clothing of short silvery down: the legs are very long, and have a remarkably elegant appearance from having a bunch of black hair set around the extremity of the first and second joints, like the bristles of a bottle-brush.
I fortify my own verdict with the observations of a brother naturalist on the Spiders of Borneo, presuming that those which he alludes to appear to belong to the genus Gastracantha, of which I have seen species in Jamaica.
"The spiders, so disgusting in appearance in many other countries, are here of quite a different nature, and are the most beautiful of the insect tribe; they have a skin of a shell-like texture, furnished with curious processes, in some long, in others short, in some few, in others numerous; but are found, of this description, only in thick woods and shaded places: their colours are of every hue, brilliant and metallic as the feathers of the humming-bird, but are, unlike the bright colours of the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the insect which they beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them."[215]
It is possible that this beauty might be less evanescent if the animals were preserved in spirit or other antiseptic fluid. A writer in the Zoologist (p. 5929) mentions the fact that the iridescence of certain beetles (Cassida) which is peculiarly splendid and metallic, and which disappears immediately on the insects' becoming dry, is perpetuated in its original loveliness when the specimens are preserved in spirit, even after the lapse of several years.
The tropical species of this genus are far finer and richer than our little English kinds, though these are pretty. I was much delighted by the brilliance of some of the Jamaican species, and Sir Emerson Tennent thus speaks of them in Ceylon:—
"There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the Cassidadæ, or tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the appearance of a ruby inclosed in a frame of pearl; but this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the insect."[216]