CHAPTER IV 

 THE WORLD AND THE BUTTERFLY 



•an's contacts with the world about him are 

 singularly limited. To a large extent he 

 himself creates the environment in which he 

 lives. Houses or other shelters or appropriate cloth- 

 ing or sometimes a simple covering of grease protect 

 him from the rain. Clothing and fire provide warmth, 

 and fire also light. Most of man's food is produced 

 under his control. Man is therefore more or less 

 completely independent of many factors that have a 

 most important — indeed a vital — bearing on the 

 existence of every other living thing. 



True appreciation of any form of animal life is 

 quite impossible unless we constantly bear in mind 

 the intricate and varied contacts of that form of life 

 with other forms of life, both animal and vegetable, 

 and also with the inanimate or inorganic world. 



In order to understand and to appreciate the intri- 

 cate nature of the complex, both living and non- 

 living, that enmeshes every living thing, holding it 

 rigidly to its proper and appointed place in the cosmic 

 plan, let us briefly consider the numerous and varied 

 contacts of a butterfly (fig. ix, p. zi). 



Did you ever realize that for their existence butter- 

 flies depend upon the sea? The young of butterflies 

 are known to us as caterpillars. Caterpillars eat 

 leaves — or at least the great majority eat leaves. 



