mes 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
_Haetera 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 Ancaea_; 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 _Haetera_ 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 it