192 SOCIAL LIFE IN THE INSECT WORLD 



as December. We had to light fires in the evening, and 

 resume the heavy clothes we had begun to leave off. 



My butterflies were too sorely tried. They emerged 

 late and were torpid. Around my cages, in which the 

 females waited — to-day one, to-morrow another, according 

 to the order of their birth — few males or none came from 

 without. Yet there were some in the neighbourhood, 

 for those with large antennae which issued from my 

 collection of cocoons were placed in the garden directly 

 they had emerged, and were recognised. Whether 

 neighbours or strangers, very few came, and those with- 

 out enthusiasm. For a moment they entered, then 

 disappeared and did not reappear. The lovers were 

 as cold as the season. 



Perhaps, too, the low temperature was unfavourable to 

 the informing effluvia, which might well be increased by 

 heat and lessened by cold as is the case with many odours. 

 My year was lost. Research is disappointing work when 

 the experimenter is the slave of the return and the caprices 

 of a brief season of the year. 



For the third time I began again. I reared caterpillars ; 

 I scoured the country in search of cocoons. When May 

 returned I was tolerably provided. The season was fine, 

 responding to my hopes. I foresaw the affluence of 

 butterflies which had so impressed me at the outset, when 

 the famous invasion occurred which was the origin of 

 my experiments. 



Every night, by squadrons of twelve, twenty, or more, 

 the visitors appeared. The female, a strapping, big- 

 bellied matron, clung to the woven wire of the cover. 

 There was no movement on her part ; not even a flutter 

 of the wings. One would have thought her indifferent 



