THE WILD ANIMALS AT PLAY 



17 



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a wind that would freeze as soon as the sun was out 

 of the sky. 



But here were real butterflies. I caught two or 

 three of them and found them to be vanessas ( Van- 



> essa californica), a close relative of our mourning- 

 cloak butterfly. They were all of one species, appar- 

 ently, but what were they doing here? 



Scrambling to the top of the piece of rock behind 

 which I had been resting, I saw that the peak was 

 alive with butterflies, and that they were flying 

 over my head, out down over the crater, and out of 

 sight behind the peak, whence they reappeared, whirl- 

 ing up the flue past me on the wings of the draft that 

 pulled hard through it, to sail down over the crater 

 again, and again to be caught by the draft and pulled 

 up the flue, to their evident delight, up and out over 

 the peak, where they could again take wings, as boys 

 take their sleds, and so down again for the fierce up- 

 ward draft that bore them whirling over Mount 

 Hood's pointed peak. 



Here they were, thousands of feet above the snow- 

 line, where there was no sign of vegetation, where 

 the heavy vapors made the air to smell, where the 

 very next day a wild snowstorm wrapped its frozen 

 folds about the peak here they were, butterflies, 



playing, a host of them, like so many schoolboys on 

 the first coasting snow ! 



