112 POSTURES OF BUTTERFLIES 



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 descendants. The lives 

 of frivolous butterflies admonish us in like fa- 

 shion. Observe how wonderfully alike are the 

 actions of butterflies of the same group, i. e., 

 descendants of the same stock ; their habits have 

 become ingrained by repetition through the ages ; 

 habits which it were almost certain destruction 

 not to obey, since in nearly every one some pro- 

 tective meaning may be found ; habits which run 

 so through groups that the keen observer may 

 foretell the apparently untrammeled actions of 

 creatures he has never seen alive, with as great 

 a percentage of accuracy as the best - informed 

 " 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 relationshijDS, and 

 we shall not be likely to reach the fairest conclu- 

 sions regarding the phylogeny of butterflies until 

 we have given these their full value. Up to the 

 present no proper investigation has been made in 

 this direction ; only a few of the most patent of 

 the tricks and ways of butterflies have been 



