AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



Month of flower-garden dance these flowers of the 

 Butterflies air. Where they are cutting the oats, the 

 humble gatekeeper butterfly flits on zigzag 

 flight, living up to its name by settling on gate or wall ; 

 and lo, the harvest butterfly the gorgeous peacock 

 now airs its velvety wings. Many more species are 

 a-wing than last month. The brimstone's heyday 

 comes with July; and the fritillaries come on their 

 rich, golden-brown wings, chequered like the petals 

 of the fritillary flower. The comma is a late-comer, 

 too; unlike any British butterfly with its scalloped 

 wings, and their sign of the comma painted in white. 

 It is the month for the heavenly blue butterflies; 

 for the swallow-tail of the Fens, in yellow and black ; 

 and in town as well as country gardens the lordly red 

 admiral spreads his gorgeous wings to bask, disdain- 

 fully shaking them when any other insect comes be- 

 tween the sun and his nobility. 



THE dandy dragonfly, hawking back and forth above a 

 pond's surface (trapping insects in the 

 Dance of hairs of the legs), turns with such magical 

 Dragonflies speed that one might think it has flown 

 backwards. Some of those engaged in egg- 

 laying cut strange capers on the pond's surface as they 

 continuously dip the tips of their slender bodies below 

 the water, with each dip dropping an egg or two of their 

 thousands to their fate. Others, having ovipositors, 

 carefully bore holes in weeds for the eggs. The eccentric 

 water-dances are seen on serenely bright days, as clouds 

 quickly pack the sun-lovers off, to sulk and sleep among 

 the reeds: sleeping so soundly that they may not stir 

 to a hand-touch. 



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