"Lo, the bright train their radiant wings unfold! With silver fringed, and freckled o'er with gold: On the gay bosom of some fragrant flower They, idly fluttering, live their little hour; Their life all pleasure, and their task all play, All spring their age, and sunshine all their day." MRS. BARBAULD ORDER LEPIDOPTERA SUBORDER RHOPALOCERA (BUTTERFLIES) FAMILY I NYMPHALIDÆ (THE BRUSH-FOOTED BUTTERFLIES) The family of the Nymphalidæ is composed of butterflies which are of medium and large size, though a few of the genera are made up of species which are quite small. They may be distinguished from all other butterflies by the fact that the first pair of legs in both sexes is atrophied or greatly reduced in size, so that they cannot be used in walking, but are carried folded up upon the breast. The fore feet, except in the case of the female of the snout-butterflies (Libytheinæ), are without tarsal claws, and hence the name "Brush-footed Butterflies" has been applied to them. As the anterior pair of legs is apparently useless, they have been called "The Four-footed Butterflies," which is scientifically a misnomer. _Egg._--The eggs of the Nymphalidæ, for the most part, are dome-shaped or globular, and are marked with raised longitudinal lines extending from the summit toward the base over the entire surface or over the upper portion of the egg. Between these elevations are often found finer and less elevated cross-lines. In a few genera the surface of the eggs is covered with reticulation arranged in geometrical patterns (see Fig. 1). _Caterpillar._--The caterpillars of the Nymphalidæ, as they emerge from the egg, have heads the diameter of which is larger than that of the body, and covered with a number of wart-like elevations from which hairs arise. The body of the immature larva generally tapers from before backward (see Plate III, Figs. 7 and 11). The mature larva is cylindrical in form, sometimes, as in the Satyrinæ, thicker in the middle. Often one or more of the segments are greatly swollen in whole or in part. The larvæ are generally ornamented with fleshy projections or branching spines. _Chrysalids._--The chrysalids are for the most part angular, and often have strongly marked projections. As a rule, they hang with the head downward, having the cremaster, or anal hook, attached to a button of silk woven to the under surface of a limb of a tree, a stone, or some other projecting surface. A few boreal species construct loose coverings of threads of silk at the roots of grasses, and here undergo their transformations. The chrysalids are frequently ornamented with golden or silvery spots.