THE GREAT PEACOCK 195 



Accordingly I lodged the female in boxes of various 

 materials ; boxes of tin-plate, wood, and cardboard. All 

 were hermetically closed, even sealed with a greasy paste. 

 I also used a glass bell resting upon a base-plate of glass. 



Under these conditions not a male arrived ; not one, 

 though the warmth and quiet of the evening were 

 propitious. Whatever its nature, whether of glass, 

 metal, card, or wood, the closed receptacle was evidently 

 an insuperable obstacle to the warning effluvia. 



A layer of cotton-wool two fingers in thickness had the 

 same result. I placed the female in a large glass jar, and 

 laced apiece of thin cotton batting over the mouth for a 

 cover ; this again guarded the secret of my laboratory. 

 Not a male appeared. 



But when I placed the females in boxes which were 

 imperfectly closed, or which had chinks in their sides, or 

 even hid them in a drawer or a cupboard, I found the 

 males arrived in numbers as great as when the object of 

 their search lay in the cage of open wire-work freely 

 exposed on a table. I have a vivid memory of one 

 evening when the recluse was hidden in a hat-box at 

 the bottom of a wall-cupboard. The arrivals went 

 straight to the closed doors, and beat them with their 

 wings, toc-toc, trying to enter. Wandering pilgrims, 

 come from I know not where, across fields and 

 meadows, they knew perfectly what was behind the 

 doors of the cupboard. 



So we must abandon the idea that the butterfly has 

 any means of communication comparable to our wire- 

 less telegraphy, as any kind of screen, whether a good oi 

 a bad conductor, completely stops the signals of the 

 female. To give them free passage and allow them to 



