POSTURES AT REST AND ASLEEP. 1603 



to have imbibed the sun's warmth, your butterfly, with the dead leaf or 

 dusty color of its under surface brought to view, lias become nearly invisi- 

 ble. 



Butterflies are not much given to walking, but in the use of their legs 

 they have many little peculiarities which generally mark whole groups. 

 Thus the Satyrids always walk by a series of nervous twitches in a very 

 bungling fashion unknown, I believe, outside of this group. Many The- 

 clidi never remain on the surface of the leaf or twig on which they have 

 pitched, facing in the direction in which they have aligiited, but turn part 

 way around to face anotiier way, and that with no reference to the sun ; 

 they do the same when the sun is wholly obscured. 



At sleep, the wings are packed away into the smallest compass, as al- 

 ready stated; with the exception of some Ilesperidi, the wings ei'ectback 

 to back, the fore wings slid down between the hind pair, so that only the 

 latter and the apex and front edge of the former are visible*. There is, 

 however, more variety in the method of treating the antennae, some, like 

 the Satyrinae, sleeping with these wide spread, others tucking them be- 

 tween the wings, others bringing them together beside the front edge of 

 the wings ; sometimes only the stalk of the antennae lie between the wings, 

 the clubs appearing beyond as if crowded out by the tight shutting of the 

 wings. In all cases where the antennae are brought together this is the 

 final action of the butterfly before complete repose ; at first the antennae 

 remain without, looking in different directions like sentinels ; and it is only 

 gradually that they are brought to the position of complete rest. 



Tiie moralist tells us, and his warning is seconded by the psychologist, 

 that as every repetition of an action makes it easier than before, so any 

 propensity indidged in wears ruts, as it were, in our character, and habits 

 become fixed ; it is easier to travel given roads than others, and, what is 

 fullest of portent, our propensities are plainly bequeathed to our descend- 

 ants. The lives of frivolous butterflies admonish us in like fashion. Ob- 

 serve how wonderfully alike are the actions of butterflies of the same 

 group, i. e., descendants of the same stock ; their habits have become in- 

 grained by repetition through the ages ; habits which it were almost certain 

 destruction not to obey, since in nearly every one some protective mean- 

 ing may be found ; habits which run so through groups that the keen 

 observer may foretell the apparently untrammelled actions of creatures he 

 has never seen alive, with as great a percentage of accuracy as the best in- 

 formed "clerk of the weather" may predict the action of the morrow's winds. 



The behavior of butterflies then has clearly its story to tell of the past 

 and its relationships, and we shall not be likely to reach the fairest conclu- 

 sions regarding the phylogeny of butterflies until we have given these their 



•Wittfeld, however, says that the southern wings, and I have seen a European Thais do 

 Euphoeades palamedes sleeps with spread the same in confinement. 



