and at the point of junction with the head the base is spread out (as shown at fig. 15), forming what engineers call a "flange," to afford sufficient support for the long column above.
The legs are the last portions of the butterfly framework that require especial notice, on account of a peculiar variation they are subject to in different family groups.
It may be laid down as an axiom, that all true insects have six legs, in one shape or another; and butterflies, being insects, are obedient to the same universal rule, and duly grow their half-dozen legs; but in certain tribes the front pair, for no apparent reason, are so short and imperfect as to be totally useless for walking purposes, though they may possibly be used as hands for polishing up the proboscis, &c. So the butterfly in this case appears, to a hasty observer, to have only four legs.
This peculiarity is a constant feature in several natural groups of butterflies, and therefore, in conjunction with other marks, such as the veining of the wings and the shape of the antennæ, its presence or absence is a most useful mark of distinction, in classifying or searching out the name and systematic place of a butterfly.
CHAPTER III.
WHAT BUTTERFLIES NEVER DO—GROUNDLESS TERROR—A MISTAKE—USES OF BUTTERFLIES—MORAL OF BUTTERFLY LIFE—PSYCHE—THE BUTTERFLY AN EMBLEM OF THE SOUL—THE ARTIST AND THE BUTTERFLY.
Among the negative attributes of butterflies, I may state positively, that no butterfly whatever can either sting or bite in the least degree; and from their total harmlessness towards the person of man, conjoined with their outward attractiveness, they merit and enjoy an exemption from those feelings of dread and disgust that attach to many, or, I may say, to almost all other tribes of insects; even to their equally harmless near relatives the larger moths. At least, it has never been my misfortune to meet with a person weak-minded enough to be afraid of a butterfly, though I have seen some exhibit symptoms of the greatest terror at the proximity of a large Hawk-moth, and some of the thick-bodied common moths—"Match-owlets," the country folk call them.
Once, also, I listened to the grave recital—by a classical scholar too—of a murderous onslaught made by a Privet Hawk-moth on the neck of a lady, and how it "bit a piece clean out." Of course I attempted to prove, by what seemed to me very fair logic, that the