The Rev. James Smith of Monquhitter thus alludes to the exquisite beauty of some South American butterflies. One or two of the species I have already alluded to, but even these can yield additional themes of admiration. "I hold," he says, "that there are hues and shades of colour which are positively beautiful in themselves, and independently of all associations whatever; and to look upon which merely as patches of colour, affords a gratification of no mean description. And for the truth of such an opinion, I know not where I should obtain a stronger and a more pleasing proof, than from the _Lepidoptera_ to which I have alluded. The patch, for instance, which is on the posterior wings of the _Hætera Esmeralda_, and which may be characterised as a compound of carmine and of the deepest blue dotted with two spots of vermilion, will in itself, and irrespectively of association, communicate a pleasure to every eye which looks upon it. The band of silver blue on the wing of a large _Morpho_; the deep tone, to speak in pictorial phrase, of the black in the _Papilio Sesostris_, finer even than the finest velvet of Genoa; the rich dark orange on _Epicilia Ancæa_; the blue, shining in one unnamed species like polished steel, in another (_Thecla_) with a radiant clearness, which ultramarine itself could not surpass; the satin-like golden green, the pearly lustrous white, and the deep shining emerald ribbons in _Urania Boisduvalii_; the crimson lines and spots deeper and clearer than blood, in a species to which no name is attached, of _Papilio_; the small spangles of silver with which the under surface of one of the least among them (_Cupido_) is, as it were, incrusted; the iridescent and delicate violet with which, on the same surface, a particular species of _Hætera_ is, so to speak, washed over, in a way which calls to our remembrance the 'scumbling' given by Rembrandt as the finishing touch to his finest productions; all these, and many more, possess a beauty which I contend, in opposition to the doctrine of Alison and Jeffrey, is absolute in itself; which is altogether irrespective of association; and which the most skilful of human pencils would find it impossible completely and properly to copy."[214] I must apologise to fair readers for alluding to Spiders--"nasty spiders!"--in a chapter on beauty; but prejudice must not make us shut our eyes to glories even among these. In the tropical species there is often metallic splendour and brilliance of colour. In my "Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica," my friend Mr Hill has written some very interesting observations on the web of a certain Spider, and on the relations of its structure with that of the Spider itself; but I allude to it now because of the elegance of the creature, the _Epeira argentata_ of Fabricius. The upper surface of the body is of a glistening satiny or silvery whiteness, the belly yellow, spotted with black, and the legs marked with alternate rings of the same contrasted hues.