58 THE RING OF NATURE 



ago, silently flapping their large thin wings on the 

 catkins, that seem to glow like faint lamps in the 

 dark. 



And here comes ambling down the blackthorn 

 grove the daintiest, freshest butterfly of the 

 whole year, and so unfailingly early of appearance 

 as to deserve the name of the very spirit of spring. 

 Who does not find a sunny day in March made 

 perfect by the brimstone butterfly ? It has had 

 its flight in autumn and has bestowed its feathered 

 wings somewhere out of reach of the mould of 

 winter, and it appears now as fresh as though it 

 had been fashioned to-day in freshest butter 

 a fancy perhaps that has given the name of butter- 

 fly to the whole order. 



The blackthorns are just bursting their crimson- 

 brown cerements and are here and there covered 

 with dazzling stars, but the brimstone butterfly 

 ignores them all and goes ' boffling ' on, covering 

 an immense stretch of country and showing itself 

 to a large number of connoisseurs of spring in a 

 day's journey. (' Boffle-fly ' may give another 

 clue to the origin of the name ' butterfly.') 



For a moment or two it hangs on a holly bush, 

 and then, if the under sides of the leaves are show- 

 ing, you have the greatest difficulty in finding the 

 insect, for its yellow, without being nearly the 

 same colour, is quite undistinguished from the 

 pale-bluish green of the leaves. By the time we 

 have found it, and admired a little the smooth 

 beauty of its wing and the chaste decoration of 



