COLOUR EFFECTS 221 



fly, which draws blood almost on the moment of alighting, 

 and also on the sluggish " march " fly, which goes about the 

 business of blood-sucking in a lazy, dreamy, lackadaisical 

 style ; and I am inclined to acknowledge him as a friend 

 and as a blessing to humanity generally. 



A TRAGEDY IN YELLOW 



Quite a distinct tragedy occurred the other day. The 

 little yellow diurnal moth commonly known as "the 

 wanderer " has a partiality for the nectar of the " bachelor's 

 button," as yellow as itself. The morning was gay with 

 butterflies. A "wanderer" poised over a yellow cushion 

 fluttered spasmodically, and remained fixed and steadfast 

 with tightly-closed wings. It allowed itself to be touched 

 without showing uneasiness, and when a brisk movement 

 was made to frighten it to flight it was still steady as a 

 statue. Closer inspection revealed the cause. The body 

 was tightly-gripped in the mandibles of a spider, a yellow 

 rotund spider with long, slender, greeny-yellowy legs. 

 Under cover of the yellow flower the yellow spider had 

 seized the yellow moth. A general inspection showed that 

 the tragedy was almost as universal as the flowers. There 

 were few flowers which did not conceal a spider, and few 

 spiders which had not murdered a moth. The conspiracy 

 between the flower and the spider for the undoing of the 

 moth (a conspiracy from which both profited) was repeated 

 thousands of times this bright morning, and it illustrated 

 the profundity of Nature's lesser tragedies, the sternness 

 with which she adjusts her equilibriums. 



COLOUR EFFECTS 



A favourite food of the great green, gold and black 

 butterfly (Ornithoptera Cassandra) is the nectar of the hard, 

 dull-red flowers of the umbrella-tree, and this fact assisted 

 in an observation which seems to prove that plants play 



