THE BAY OF BUTTERFLIES 269 



crammed into small areas of sand in the midst of 

 more sand, bounded by walls of empty aii* — this 

 was a strange thing. 



A little later, when I enthusiastically reported 

 it to a professional lepidopterist he brushed it 

 aside. "A common occurrence the world over, 

 Rhopalocera gathered in damp places to drink.'* 

 I, too, had observed apparently similar phenom- 

 ena along icy streams in Sikhim, and around 

 muddy buffalo-wallows in steaming Malay jun- 

 gles. And I can recall many years ago, leaning 

 far out of a New England buggy to watch clouds 

 of little sulphurs flutter up from puddles beneath 

 the creaking wheels. 



The very fact that butterflies chose to drink 

 in company is of intense interest, and to be en- 

 vied as well by us humans who are temporarily 

 denied that privilege. But in the Bay of Butter- 

 flies they were not drinking, nor during the sev- 

 eral days when I watched them. One of the 

 chosen patches of sand was close to the tide when 

 I first saw them, and damp enough to appease 

 the thirst of any butterfly. The other two were 

 upon sand, parched by hours of direct tropical 

 sun, and here the two layers were massed. 



The insects alighted, facing in any direction, 



