of immense size and adorned with the most brilliant azure tints, which in some species attain a splendour of metallic lustre unsurpassed in nature. The Brassolidæ are even larger, but are crepuscular insects, with rich though sober colouring. The true Heliconii are magnificent insects, most elegantly marked with brilliant and strongly contrasted tints. The Nymphalidæ are represented by such a variety of gorgeous insects that it is difficult to select examples. Prominent are the genera _Catagramma_ and _Callithea_, whose exquisite colours and symmetrical markings are unique and indescribable; and these are in some cases rivalled by _Agrias_ and _Prepona_, which reproduce their style of coloration although not closely allied to them. The Erycinidæ, consisting of 59 genera and 560 species, comprise the most varied and beautiful of small butterflies; and it would be useless to attempt to indicate the unimaginable combinations of form and colour they present. It must be sufficient to say that nothing elsewhere on the globe at all resembles them. In Lycænidæ the world-wide genus _Thecla_ is wonderfully developed, and the South {15}American species not only surpass all others in size and beauty, but some of them are so gorgeous on the under surface of their wings, as to exceed almost all the combinations of metallic tints we meet with in nature. The last family, Hesperidæ, is also wonderfully developed here, the species being excessively numerous, while some of them redeem the character of this generally sober family, by their rich and elegant coloration. In the only other group of Lepidoptera we can here notice, the Sphingina, the Neotropical region possesses some peculiar forms. The magnificent diurnal butterfly-like moths, _Urania_, are the most remarkable; and they are rendered more interesting by the occurrence of a species closely resembling them in Madagascar. Another family of day-flying moths, the Castniidæ, is almost equally divided between the Neotropical and Australian regions, although the genera are more numerous in the latter. The American Castnias are large, thick-bodied insects, with a coarse scaly surface and rich dull colours; differing widely from the glossy and gaily coloured Agaristas, which are typical of the family in the East. _Coleoptera._--This is so vast a subject that, as in the case of the regions already treated, we must confine our attention to a few of the more important and best known families as representatives of the entire order.