|
In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
|
BUT'TERFLY, n. [from the color of a yellow species.]
Papilio, a genus of insects, of the order of lepidopters. They have four wings imbricated with a kind of downy scales; the tongue is convoluted in a spiral form; and the body is hairy. The species are numerous. Butter-flies proceed from the crysalids of caterpillars; caterpillars proceed from eggs deposited by butterflies; they then change into crysalids, which produce butterflies, which again deposit their eggs.
A general name for the numerous
species of diurnal Lepidoptera.
[See Illust. under
Aphrodite.]
Asclepias butterfly. See under Asclepias. -- Butterfly fish (Zoöl.), the ocellated blenny (Blennius ocellaris) of Europe. See Blenny. The term is also applied to the flying gurnard. -- Butterfly shell (Zoöl.), a shell of the genus Voluta. -- Butterfly valve (Mech.), a kind of double clack valve, consisting of two semicircular clappers or wings hinged to a cross rib in the pump bucket. When open it somewhat resembles a butterfly in shape. | ||||||||