Earliest Signs of Spring 
rich, dark-brown color, with the wings broadly 
banded with yellow, and finely spotted with 
blue. It is one of the commonest: species later 
in the year; but the books do not speak of its 
appearing before April, so that this was an un- 
usually ‘‘ early bird,’’ and to be called valiant 
or venturesome, according to our own mood. 
Its early appearance is due to the fact that, like 
a few other species, it hibernates in protected 
corners and hiding-places, instead of dying in 
the previous year, as the majority of species do, 
soon after depositing their eggs. 
Wonderful as is the wing of the butterfly, in 
variety and intensity of its delicate hues, still 
more wonderful is the unique method that 
Nature has employed to produce its ornamenta- 
tion. For, under the microscope, the surface 
of the wing is seen to be the verisimilitude, in 
miniature, of a tiled roof; the tiles, in this 
case, being minute colorless scales overlapping 
each other, and by whose interference with the 
rays of light along their edges, the various colors 
are produced, precisely as in mother-of-pearl. 
Nature is masterly, indeed, in producing the 
tints of the rose, the lily, and the countless 
other forms of inflorescence and of foliage. 
Yet in all these instances she works, so to 
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