THE GREAT PEACOCK 181 



were flying round the wire-gauze cover, alighting, taking 

 flight, returning, mounting to the ceiling, re-descending. 

 They rushed at the candle and extinguished it with a 

 flap of the wing ; they fluttered on our shoulders, clung 

 to our clothing, grazed our faces. My study had become 

 a cave of a necromancer, the darkness alive with 

 creatures of the night ! Little Paul, to reassure himself, 

 held my hand much tighter than usual. 



How many were there ? About twenty. To these add 

 those which had strayed into the kitchen, the nursery, 

 and other rooms in the house, and the total must have 

 been nearly forty. It was a memorable sight — the Night 

 of the Great Peacock ! Come from all points of the 

 compass, warned I know not how, here were forty lovers 

 eager to do homage to the maiden princess that morning 

 born in the sacred precincts of my study. 



For the time being I troubled the swarm of pretenders 

 no further. The flame of the candle endangered the 

 visitors ; they threw themselves into it stupidly and 

 singed themselves slightly. On the morrow we could 

 resume our study of them, and make certain carefully 

 devised experiments. 



To clear the ground a little for what is to follow, let 

 me speak of what was repeated every night during the 

 eight nights my observations lasted. Every night, when 

 it was quite dark, between eight and ten o'clock, the 

 butterflies arrived one by one. The weather was stormy ; 

 the sky heavily clouded ; the darkness was so profound 

 that out of doors, in the garden and away from the trees, 

 one could scarcely see one's hand before one's face. 



In addition to such darkness as this there were certain 

 difficulties of access. The house is hidden by great 



