Chap. XI.] BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. 387 



are most excited by the more brilliant males ; for on any 

 other supposition the males would be ornamented, as far 

 as we can see, for no purpose. We know that ants and 

 certain lamellicorn beetles are capable of feeling an at- 

 tachment for each other, and that ants recognize their fel- 

 lows after an interval of several months. Hence there is 

 no abstract improbability in the Lepidoptera, which prob- 

 ably stand nearly or quite as high in the scale as these 

 insects, having sufficient mental capacity to admire bright 

 colors. They certainly discover flowers by color, and, as 

 I have elsewhere shown, the plants w T hich are fertilized 

 exclusively by the wind never have a conspicuously-col- 

 ored corolla. The Humming-bird Sphinx may often be 

 seen to swoop down from a distance on a bunch of flowers 

 in the midst of green foliage ; and I have been assured 

 by a friend that these moths repeatedly visited flowers 

 painted on the walls of a room in the south of France. 

 The common white butterfly, as I hear from Mr. Double- 

 day, often flies down to a bit of paper on the ground, no 

 doubt mistaking it for one of its own species. Mr. Col- 

 lingwood, 17 in speaking of the difficulty of collecting cer- 

 tain butterflies in the Malay Archipelago, states that " a 

 dead specimen pinned upon a conspicuous twig will often 

 arrest an insect of the same species in its headlong flight 

 and bring it down within easy reach of the net, especially 

 if it be of the opposite sex." 



The courtship of butterflies is a prolonged affair. 

 The males sometimes fight together in rivalry ; and many 

 may be seen pursuing or crowding round the same female. 

 If, then, the females do not prefer one male to another, 

 the pairing must be left to mere chance, and this does 

 not appear to me a probable event. If, on the other hand, 

 the females habitually, or even occasionally, prefer the 

 more beautiful males, the colors of the latter will have 



17 ' Rambles of a Naturalist in the Chinese Seas,' 1868, p. 182. 



