CHAPTEE XXI 



BUTTERFLIES 



OH, how beautiful ! Oh, my goodness, how beau- 

 tiful they are! There are some whose wings 

 are barred with red on a garnet background; some 

 bright blue with black circles; others are sulphur- 

 yellow with orange spots; again others are white 

 fringed with gold-color. They have on the fore- 

 head two fine horns, two antennae, sometimes fringed 

 like an aigrette, sometimes cut off like a tuft of 

 feathers. Under the head they have a proboscis, a 

 sucker as fine as a hair and twisted into a spiral. 

 When they approach a flower, they untwist the pro- 

 boscis and plunge it to the bottom of the corolla to 

 drink a drop of honeyed liquor. Oh, how beautiful 

 they are ! Oh, my goodness, how beautiful they are ! 

 But if one manages to touch them, their wings tar- 

 nish and leave between the fingers a fine dust like 

 that of precious metals. 



Now their uncle told the children the names of 

 the butterflies that flew on the flowers in the garden. 

 "This one," said he, whose wings are white with a 

 black border and three black spots, is called the 

 cabbage butterfly. This larger one, whose yellow 

 wings barred with black terminate in a long tail, at 

 the base of which are found a large rust colored 

 eye and blue spots, is called the swallow-tail. This 



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