Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/68

66 The remarkable superiority in size and beauty of most tropical productions over those of temperate regions, is scarcely more strikingly exemplified in any department of nature than in this. The most richly ornamented of our native species, and we possess many of great beauty, appear insignificant when contrasted with those of Brazil and Eastern Asia. Various as are the modifications of form which they present in this country, we find nothing to prepare us for the peculiar outline and aspect which many kinds assume in the warmer regions of the earth. Here we seldom find any having the hinder wings prolonged into a tail, but among foreign species this is a common appendage, sometimes long and linear, at other times broad and spatulate; and occasionally there are not fewer than three or four on each of the hinder wings. Along with this variety of outline, they exhibit almost every possible shade of colour, from the most brilliant to the most obscure, combined and blended in the most elegant and harmonious designs, rendering this tribe of creatures one of the most ornamental to be found in nature.

Although such endless diversity of colouring is observable in this class as a whole, it is, at the same time, worthy of remark, that most of the principal groups are characterized by the prevalence of particular hues, as well as considerable uniformity in their mode of distribution; that is to say, certain modifications of structure are generally accompanied with a certain pictorial design. Thus, the greater proportion