Song Birds and Water Fowl 
speak, upon the level of the human painter, by 
using material dyes which, in the form of chlo- 
rophyll and other coloring matter, are laid be- 
neath the epidermis. But when she embel- 
lishes the wing of this gay creature, a brilliant 
fancy seizes her; and, with one of those sud- 
den revelations of consummate ease, before un- 
dreamed, with which at will she dashes off the 
most stupendous stroke of genius, as if the very 
universe were a plaything in her hands, she dips 
her magic brush, not into the rarest pigments 
of earthly texture, but into that most subtle 
fountain of all color—the pure prismatic rays 
of light streaming direct from heaven. 
Perhaps no judgment of mankind is more un- 
just and superficial than that which exalts the 
bee into a paragon of most praiseworthy dili- 
gence, while it degrades the butterfly into an 
odious emblem of frivolity and indolence. Al- 
most the earliest taste of poetry which the in- 
fant mind enjoys—or suffers—is an indirect in- 
junction, in ‘‘ common metre,’’ to admire and 
emulate this painfully industrious hymenopta ; 
and this early impression is doubtless the foun- 
dation of its universal and impregnable reputa- 
tion. Itis not at all difficult, however, to show 
that the life and habits of the calumniated but- 
270 
