THE WAYS OF BUTTERFLIES. 493 



OH the very spot he quitted for the frtiy. But they are not always partic- 

 uhir to choose one of their own kind for tliis combat. Toss your liat in 

 the air, and ahnost any of our angle-wings will dash at it and circle 

 around it as it rises and falls ; and the little American copper, one of our 

 smallest butterflies, will dart at every bulky grassliopper that shoots 

 across its field of vision. 



Some butterflies are as fond of water, or even of oi'dure, as they are of 

 the sugared sweets of flowers. Every one nuist have noticed at the brink 

 of roadside pools left by a recent rain, how the yellow butterflies will start 

 up at one's ap])roach, flutter about a few moments, and then settle down 

 again to their repast. On favorable occasions, you may find them ranged 

 by hundreds along the edge of a puddle, with wings erect, crowded as 

 closely as they can be packed. The little azure butterflies congregate in 

 the same way about moist spots in the roads through woods ; but as they 

 choose less frecpiented places, this is not so common a sight. Our tiger 

 swallow-tails throng about lilac-blossoms, and become so intoxicated that 

 on one occasion a friend of mine caught sixty of them at once between his 

 two hands ; and Baron tells the story (Nature, xxix :503) of two kinds of 

 swallow-tails in jSIadagascar which evidently suck moisture from the 

 ground for the mere pleasure of the thing, alighting by a stream of water 

 and ejecting the water behind as fast as it takes it in in front ; on one occa- 

 sion about a salt spoon of what was apparently pure water was caught 

 from the abdominal flow in about five minutes ! 



The butterflies I have mentioned show an apparent fondness for each 

 other's company, apart from the attractions of the flowers or the muddy 

 road; indeed, there are very few butterflies which, at the time of their 

 greatest abundance, do not show a tendency to congregate. The mon- 

 arch, or milk-weed butterfly (Anosia plexippus) for example, may be seen 

 quite by himself, sailing majestically over the fields, until late in the sea- 

 son, when, having nudtiplied to excess, vast swarms are found together; 

 together they mount in the air to lofty heights, as no other butterfly 

 appears to do, and play about in ceaseless gyrations ; and sometimes they 

 crowd so thickly upon a tree or bush, as by their color to change its whole 

 appearance ; occasionally we hear of the migrations of butterflies in 

 swarms, but they are of rare occurrence, and have mostly been observed 

 in the tropics. iNIr. AV. Edwards, however, relates hoAv, from the top of 

 Pegan Hill, in Xatick, ^Massachusetts, he saw such a moving swarm flying 

 steadily for hours in a single direction . They passed too high for recogni- 

 tion, although, by his description of their size and their mode of flight, it 

 was probably the same butterfly which Ave have just mentioned. 



The movements of buttei-flies on the wing are as different as the flights 

 of birds, and just as an ornithologist may distinguish many birds by their 

 mode of flight when their form and colors are indistinguishable, so the 



