50 UP AND DOWN THE BROOKS. 



in June, and as one goes toward, home carrying a 

 bunch of leaves for such creatures, a white billy- 

 goat near the path stretches out his head and 

 mutely begs for a teasel leaf as a variation from 

 his fare of dry grass. He munches the prickly 

 morsel with satisfaction. Who had supposed that 

 the teasels, were the friends of so many creatures ? 



But when the teasels bloom, myriads of butter- 

 flies haunt the white - spotted heads. Here one 

 will find little clouds of butterflies springing up 

 before one while walking, and, if you look into 

 the clouds, you may see what the boys call the 

 Bull's-eye butterfly, Junonia, with its wings 

 spotted with eyes like a peacock's. Here flutter 

 blue or brown smaller ones, the representatives 

 of the Lyccenidce, and beside this stream one 

 day I found two downy, white moths, Arctia, 

 with black spots on their wings, and abdomens 

 marked on top with six black spots and a patch 

 of orange. 



In the summer time, when many of these pools 

 are dry, one may walk their beds and find the 

 butterflies resting and sunning themselves in spots 

 where, a few months before, polliwogs bobbed 

 up and down and pond-snails clung surrounded 

 by dancing beetles. " Freyja's hens," the old 

 Icelanders called the butterflies. " Freyjuhoena" 

 Since Freyja was the Norse goddess of love, it is 

 quite unlikely that a being of her sort would 

 keep such good-for-nothing hens, the goddess 



