304 BTTTTF/RFLY MEMOIRS. 



Little, perhaps, did the author of our opening motto, little 

 the poet, who declares that 



" From flower to flower, on balmy gales to fly, 

 Is all they Lave to do beneath the radiant sky,"- 



seem to have thought upon the manifold changes and chances 

 of papilionaceous life. Why, then, did we not edit the Life of 

 a Butterfly ? For the simple reason, that being more scrupu- 

 lous than some of our editorial contemporaries, we did not 

 like to represent as individual experiences, incidents which 

 might, and daily do, occur to Butterflies in general ; but which 

 we could not vouch for as having actually happened to the 

 subject of our Memoir. Therefore, until we are enabled by 

 help of wings to attend the Purple Emperor in his progresses 

 through air, and are sufficiently versed in the antennal language 

 (as carried on by touch and signal) to become a spy -upon the 

 Painted Lady in her hours of supposed privacy, and until from 

 our knowledge of her mode of writing, as inscribed on leaves, 

 we are enabled to fathom the secrets of her correspondence, 

 until then, we must suspend the contemplated work to which 

 at present we confess ourselves incompetent. 



We shall be content, in the meanwhile, to give the history 

 of Butterflies in general, as it has been noted down and re- 

 corded, not in one, but in numerous individuals of the race. 

 Let it not, however, be imagined that the history of all will 

 serve for that of one, or that of one for all. There are among 



