Part 32

Some of the genus Hætera, (as H. piera, and H. esmeralda,) and many of the Heliconiadæ, as Hymenitis diaphana, &c., have the wings nearly or quite destitute of the ordinary scaly clothing, presenting only a transparent membrane of great delicacy; over which the light plays with a beautiful iridescence. Papilio Arcturus and some allied species, are of a golden-green, changing to blue, or to glowing purple. Very many of the Nymphalidæ are distinguished for a flush of surpassing richness, that in one particular light gleams over the surface. Our own Apatura Iris, commonly known as the purple emperor, is a native example of this beauty, and still more A. namoura; but especially the species of the genus Thaumantis, as well as Morpho Martia, and M. Automedon. Diadema bolina also displays a purple flush over and around the white spots, which is exquisitely beautiful. In general this glow is found only in the male, but in the lovely Epiphile chrysitis it is common to the female.

In Colias Electra a warm purple glow plays over the surface in a strong light, which is the more singularly beautiful, because the permanent colour which is thus suffused is a rich golden orange. There is, however, a species (C. Lesbia) of which only a single specimen is known, and that is in fragments, in the Banksian Collection, which is in this respect vastly superior to the former. In all these cases, the playing gleam is more or less empurpled; in Paphia Portia, however, it may be called crimson.

But still more exquisitely beautiful than any of these is the fine opalescence that irradiates some butterflies in the changing beam. There is a white butterfly from Senegal (Anthocharis Ione) allied to our common garden whites, marked at the tips of the wings with a spot of violet, surrounded by black. In a certain aspect, there plays over this spot a violet opalescence of exceeding richness. And to mention no more, (for, indeed, we know not that we could mention anything to surpass this,) the carnation spots on the black wings of Papilio Anchises, P. Æneas, P. Tullus, &c., are at intervals flushed with a violet opalescence, so brilliant, that we know no other object to compare with it.

In contemplating such objects, we cannot help concurring in the sentiments expressed by the pious Ray:--"Quæri fortasse à nonnullis potest, quis Papilionum usus sit? Respondeo, Ad ornatum universi, et ut hominibus spectaculo sint: ad rura illustranda velut tot bracteæ inservientes. Quis enim eximiam earum pulchritudinem et varietatem contemplans mira voluptate non afficiatur? Quis tot colorum et schematum elegantias naturæ ipsius ingenio excogitatas et artifici penicillo depictas curiosis oculis intuens, divinæ artis vestigia eis impressa non agnoscat et miretur?" And I may add, since such exquisite traces of loveliness remain in a world which Satan has spoiled and sin defiled, what must have been its glory when He who made it could take complacency in beholding it, and in the minutest details could pronounce it "very good!"

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."

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.

In the same island I was familiar with another species, (Nephila clavipes,) remarkable for the length and strength of its silken cords. The body, which is lengthened, is studded with round white spots, each encircled with a black border, on a rich greenish brown ground, reminding one of the characteristic markings of the Tragopans among birds. The cephalothorax is shining black, its lustre half concealed by a clothing of short silvery down: the legs are very long, and have a remarkably elegant appearance from having a bunch of black hair set around the extremity of the first and second joints, like the bristles of a bottle-brush.

I fortify my own verdict with the observations of a brother naturalist on the Spiders of Borneo, presuming that those which he alludes to appear to belong to the genus Gastracantha, of which I have seen species in Jamaica.

"The spiders, so disgusting in appearance in many other countries, are here of quite a different nature, and are the most beautiful of the insect tribe; they have a skin of a shell-like texture, furnished with curious processes, in some long, in others short, in some few, in others numerous; but are found, of this description, only in thick woods and shaded places: their colours are of every hue, brilliant and metallic as the feathers of the humming-bird, but are, unlike the bright colours of the beetle, totally dependent on the life of the insect which they beautify, so that it is impossible to preserve them."

It is possible that this beauty might be less evanescent if the animals were preserved in spirit or other antiseptic fluid. A writer in the Zoologist (p. 5929) mentions the fact that the iridescence of certain beetles (Cassida) which is peculiarly splendid and metallic, and which disappears immediately on the insects' becoming dry, is perpetuated in its original loveliness when the specimens are preserved in spirit, even after the lapse of several years.

The tropical species of this genus are far finer and richer than our little English kinds, though these are pretty. I was much delighted by the brilliance of some of the Jamaican species, and Sir Emerson Tennent thus speaks of them in Ceylon:--

"There is one family of insects, the members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by their singular beauty, the Cassidadæ, or tortoise beetles, in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, and one species which I have seen is quite startling from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the appearance of a ruby inclosed in a frame of pearl; but this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the death of the insect."

If we turn to the vegetable world, what a profusion of beauty do we find! Exquisite are the tiny Mosses, when the fogs and rains of winter, so inimical to other vegetation, have quickened them into verdure and fruit. How they spread along the hedgerow banks in soft fleeces of vivid emerald, and shoot up their slender stalks, each crowned with its tiny urn, and wearing its fairy nightcap! Beautiful are the tiny dark-green feather-like leaves of the Forkmoss crowded on the clayey bank; beautiful the wild sprays of the plumy Hypnum; and beautiful the little round velvet cushions of Tortula, that grow on every old wall-top.

"The tiny moss, whose silken verdure clothes The time-worn rock, and whose bright capsules rise, Like fairy urns, on stalks of golden sheen, Demand our admiration and our praise, As much as cedar kissing the blue sky Or Krubul's giant-flower. God made them all, And what He deigns to make should ne'er be deem'd Unworthy of our study."

Exquisite too are the Ferns, in their arching fronds, so richly cut in elegant tracery. See a fine crown of the Lady Fern in a shaded Devonshire lane, and confess that grace and beauty are triumphant there. And in the saturated atmosphere of the tropical islands, where these lovely plants form a very large proportion of the entire vegetation, and some of them rise on slender stems thirty or forty feet in altitude, from the summit of which the wide-spreading fronds arch gracefully on every side, like a vast umbrella of twinkling verdure, through whose filagree work the sunbeams are sparkling,--what can be more charming than Ferns?

The queenly Palms, too, are models of stately beauty. Linnæus called them vegetabilium principes; and, when we see them in some noble conservatory of adequate dimensions, such as the glass palm-house at Kew, crowded side by side, with their crowned heads, and lofty stature, and proud, erect bearing, we are involuntarily reminded of the monarchs of many kingdoms met in august conclave.

"Lo! higher still the stately palm-trees rise, Chequering the clouds with their unbending stems, And o'er the clouds, amid the dark-blue skies, Lifting their rich unfading diadems. How calm and placidly they rest Upon the heaven's indulgent breast, As if their branches never breeze had known! Light bathes them aye in glancing showers, And Silence, 'mid their lofty bowers, Sits on her moveless throne."

Are the Grasses worthy of mention for their beauty? Surely, yes. Many of them display a downy lightness exquisitely lovely, as the common Feather-grass. The golden panicles of the great Quake-grass, so curiously compacted and hanging in stalks of so hair-like a tenuity as to nod and tremble with the slightest motion, how beautiful are these! And the satiny plumes of the Pampas-grass projecting from the clump of leaves form a fine object. But the Bamboos, those great arborescent Grasses of the tropics, form a characteristic feature of the vegetation of those regions, of almost unexampled magnificence. I have seen them in their glory, and can sympathise with the philosophical Humboldt in the powerful effect which the grandeur of the Bamboo produces on the poetic mind. It is an object never to be forgotten, especially when growing in those isolated clumps, that look like tufts of ostrich-plumes magnified to colossal dimensions. A thousand of these noble reeds standing in close array, each four or five inches in the diameter of its stem, and rising in erect dignity to the height of forty feet, and all waving their tufted summits in diverging curves moved by every breeze,--form, indeed, a magnificent spectacle. Growing in the most rocky situations, the Bamboo is frequently planted in Jamaica on the very apex of those conical hills which form so remarkable a feature in the landscape of the interior, and to which its noble tufts constitute a most becoming crown.

Mr Ellis thus describes the elegance of these magnificent Grasses in Madagascar:--

"The base of the hills and the valleys were covered with the Bamboo, which was far more abundant than during any former part of the journey. There were at least four distinct varieties: one a large growing kind, erect nearly to the point; a second smaller, seldom rising much above twenty feet in height, bushy at the base, and gracefully bending down its tapering point. A third kind rose in single cane, almost without a leaf, to the height of thirty feet or more; or, bending over, formed a perfectly circular arch. I also saw a Bamboo growing as a creeper, with small short joints, feathered with slender leafy branches at every joint, and stretching in festoons from tree to tree along the side of the road, or hanging suspended in single lines from a projecting branch, and swinging gently with the passing breeze. The appearance of the Bamboo when growing is exceedingly graceful. Sometimes the canes, as thick as a man's arm at the base, rise forty or fifty feet high, fringed at the joints, which are two or three feet apart, with short branches of long, lance-shaped leaves. The smaller kinds, which abound most in this region, are still more elegant; and the waving of the canes, with their attenuated but feathery-looking points, bending down like a plume, and the tremulous quivering, even in the slightest breeze, of their long, slender leaves, present ever-varying aspects of beauty; and, combined with the bright-green colour of the Bamboo-cane and leaf, impart an indescribable charm to the entire landscape."

Glorious in loveliness are the Musaceæ, the Plantains and Bananas of the hot regions. Humboldt calls the Banana "one of the noblest and most lovely of vegetable productions;" and truly its enormous, flag-like leaves of the richest green, permeated by nervures running transversely in exactly parallel lines, and arching out in every direction from the succulent, spongy, sheathed stem, command our admiration, apart from the beauty of their flowers, or the importance of their fruit.

In a description of a mountain scene in Tahiti, drawn with graphic power by Charles Darwin, the Banana forms a prominent element:--"I could not look on the surrounding plants without admiration. On every side were forests of Banana; the fruit of which, though serving for food in various ways, lay in heaps decaying on the ground.... As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy shade of the Bananas up the course of the stream. My walk was soon brought to a close, by coming to a waterfall between two and three hundred feet high; and again above this there was another.... In the little recess where the water fell, it did not appear that a breath of wind had ever blown. The thin edges of the great leaves of the Banana, damp with spray, were unbroken, instead of being, as is so generally the case, split into a thousand shreds. From our position, almost suspended on the mountain-side, there were glimpses into the depths of the neighbouring valleys: and the lofty points of the central mountains, towering up within sixty degrees of the zenith, hid half the evening sky. Thus seated, it was a sublime spectacle to watch the shades of night gradually obscuring the last and highest pinnacles."

This scene must have been one of surpassing sublimity and loveliness. Few doubtless have ever beheld anything that can be compared with it. But perhaps many have felt--I have, often,--that there are occasions in which the sense of the beautiful in nature becomes almost painfully overpowering. I have gazed on some very lovely prospects, bathed perhaps in the last rays of the evening sun, till my soul seemed to struggle with a very peculiar undefinable sensation, as if longing for a power to enjoy, which I was conscious I did not possess, and which found relief only in tears. I have felt conscious that there were elements of enjoyment and admiration there, which went far beyond my capacity of enjoying and admiring; and I have delighted to believe, that, by and by, when, in the millennial kingdom of Jesus, and, still more, in the remoter future, in the dispensation of the fulness of times, the earth--the "new earth,"--shall be endowed with a more than paradisaical glory, there will be given to redeemed man a greatly increased power and capacity for drinking in, and enjoying the augmented loveliness. Doubtless the risen and glorified saints, sitting with the King of kings upon His throne, will have the senses of their spiritual bodies expanded in capacity beyond what we can now form the slightest conception of; and as all then will be enjoyment of the most exquisite kind, and absolutely unalloyed by interruption or satiety,--the eye will at length be satisfied with seeing, and the ear be satisfied with hearing. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake up with thy likeness."

It is in Flowers that the beauty of the vegetable world chiefly resides; and I shall now therefore select a few examples from the profusion of lovely objects which the domain proper of Flora presents to us.

That very curious tribe of plants, the Orchideæ, so remarkable for the mimic forms of other things, that its blossoms delight to assume, is also pre-eminent in gorgeous beauty. Take the Sobraliæ,--terrestrial species from Central America, where they form extensive thickets, growing thrice the height of man, with slender nodding stems, and alternate willow-like leaves, and terminal racemes loaded with snow-white, pink, crimson, or violet flowers. Imagine the crushing through "thickets" of the lovely S. macrantha! The large lily-like blossoms of this species are eight inches long, and as many wide, of the richest purple crimson, and of the most elegant shape conceivable, with the lip so wrapped round the column as to appear funnel-shaped, bordered by an exquisitely-cut fringe.

I have before alluded to Phajus Tankervilliæ, that rich lily-like spike of blossom which I stumbled on in the midst of a dense thicket in the mountains of Jamaica. Another terrestrial genus of great elegance is Cypripedium, of which we have one native species, C. calceolus, the yellow lady's slipper,--one of the most charming, but the rarest and most difficult of propagation, of British plants. But this is far excelled in beauty by many of the exotic species; as, for example, the exquisite C. barbatum from Malacca. The very foliage is princely; for the nervures and cross-veins form a network pattern of dark green upon the light green area of each broad leaf. The blossom rears up its noble head erect, with its standard-petal of white, striped with green and purple, the wing-petals studded with purple tubercles along their edges, and the lip or slipper-shaped petal of a dark purple hue.

My readers may have occasionally noticed a little plant, in the most recherchées stove-houses, of so much delicacy and preciousness that it is invariably kept under a bell-glass. I mean the Anæctochilus setaceus. It belongs to this tribe, and is a terrestrial species, growing about the roots of the trees in the humid forests of Ceylon. Its exquisite loveliness has attracted the attention of even the apathetic Cingalese, who call it by the poetical epithet of Wanna Raja, or king of the forest. It does not appear to possess any peculiar attractiveness in its blossoms,--indeed, I have never seen it in flower; but its leaves, which grow in opposite pairs, are elegantly heart-shaped, of a deep rich greenish-brown hue, approaching to black, of a surface which resembles velvet, reticulated all over with pale golden veins, which, being numerous and minute, have a very charming appearance, somewhat like the pale network on black patches which we see in the wings of some dragon-flies.

The epiphyte Orchids are also magnificent in beauty. One of the handsomest genera is Dendrobium, containing many species, mostly natives of Southern Asia and the great islands. Perhaps the finest of all is D. nobile, of which the sepals and petals are greenish-white, tipped with rich purple, and the downy tube-like lip is of the same regal hue in the interior, with a pale yellow margin.