184 THE WAYS 



flies, will dart at every bulky grasslioi)per that 

 shoots across its field of vision. 



Some butterflies are as fond of water, or even of 

 ordure, as they are of the sugared sweets of flowers. 

 Every one must have noticed at the brink of road- 

 side pools left by a recent rain, how the yellow but- 

 terflies will start up at one's approach, 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 frequented 

 places, this is not so common a sight. Our Tiger 

 Swallow-tails throng about lilac-blossoms, and be- 

 come 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 of two kinds 

 of swallow-tails in Madagascar which evidently 

 suck moistm^e from the ground for the mere pleas- 

 ure of the thing, alighting by a stream of water 

 and ejecting the water behind as fast as they take 

 it in in front ; on one occasion about a saltspoon 

 of what was apparently pure water was caught from 

 the abdominal flow in about five minutes ! 



