A COLONY OF BUTTEEFLIES. 85 



and farther north, followed by the main body of its 

 train — plants, butterflies, and animals, — the while 

 some of these foolish butterflies were beguiled by the 

 shallow ice-torrents which then filled the ravines 

 of Mount "\Vashin2^ton. Return became at lenjjth 

 impossible. They advanced beliind the deceiving 

 local glaciers, step by step up the mouutain-side, 

 pushed from below by the warm climate, which 

 to them was uncongenial, until they reached the 

 mountain-peak, to-day bare of snow in the short 

 summer. Here, blown sideways by the wind, tliey 

 patiently cling to the rocks. Or, in clear weather, 

 on weak and careful wing, they fly from flower of 

 stemless mountain-pink to blue-berry, swaying from 

 their narrow tenure of the land. Drawn into the 

 currents of air that sweep the mountain's side, they 

 are, at times, forced downwards, to be parched in 

 the hot valleys below. Yet they maintain them- 

 selves. They are fighting it out on that line. They 

 are entrapped, and must die out by natural causes, 

 unless certain entomologists sooner extirpate them 

 by pinning them up in collections of insects. 



"What time, on " Bigelow's Lawn," I see the ill- 

 advised collector, net in hand, swooping down on 

 this devoted colony, of ancient lineage and more 

 than Puritan afliliation, I wonder if, before it is too 

 late, there will not be a law passed to protect the 

 butterflies from the cupidity of their pursuers. 



This is the story of a New-England colony of 

 butterflies. I commend this colony to the protec- 

 tion of all good citizens of the State of New 

 Hampshire. 



