THE GOLDFINCH'S NEST 



months and have travelled thousands of miles on 

 singing from exactly the same twig, so a butterfly or 

 moth will often persist in sunning and displaying itself, 

 or sleeping on the same grass-head or stem, the same 

 flower or clod of earth. I mentioned in another 

 book the odd case of a marsh fritillary butterfly 

 that had its headquarters on a small piece of chalk 

 in a meadow of the river Test, near Romsey ; how 

 I found it there several days at the same hour, and 

 how, when disturbed, it flew across the river in 

 exactly the same direction. Then there was the 

 wood tiger moth, which I disturbed at a certain spot 

 on the railway embankment a few weeks ago. It 

 flew rapidly up and across the line, but a short time 

 afterwards I found it back at the same spot, and 

 again it was up and off in the same direction. 



A Butterfly on the Tomb 



But the drollest instance of this strong preference 

 for certain settling or resting spots which I have 

 noticed so far has been that of the small heath 

 butterfly. This little butterfly seems finical, fasti- 

 dious to a degree. There is a small plot of ground 

 in the cemetery which has been roughly swept by 

 the scythe. Around is long grass, partly hiding, 

 not unkindly, many neglected records of a pale and 

 silent city. Butterflies affect this place for the 

 grass grows rank. There is the common blue, 



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