Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/40

 not peculiar to one zone, but is producible under any climate where a number of species of a given genus lead a flourishing existence. The ornamental dress is generally the property of one sex to the exclusion of the other, and the cases of widest contrast between the two are exhibited in those regions where life is generally more active and prolific. All this points to the mutual relations of the species, and especially to those between the sexes, as having far more to do in the matter than climate.

In the gardens, numbers of fine showy butterflies were seen. There were two swallow-tailed species, similar in colours to the English Papilio Machaon; a white Pieris (P. Monuste), and two or three species of brimstone and orange coloured butterflies, which do not belong, however, to the same genus as our English species. In weedy places a beautiful butterfly, with eye-like spots on its wings, was common, the Junonia Lavinia, the only Amazonian species which is at all nearly related to our Vanessas, the Admiral and Peacock butterflies. One day we made our first acquaintance with two of the most beautiful productions of nature in this department; namely the Helicopis Cupido and Endymion. A little beyond our house, one of the narrow green lanes which I have already mentioned diverged from the Monguba avenue, and led, between enclosures overrun with a profusion of creeping plants and glorious flowers, down to a moist hollow, where there was a public well in a picturesque nook, buried in a grove of Mucajá palm-trees. On the tree-trunks, walls, and palings, grew a great quantity of climbing