NATURE'S CALENDAR 155 



down in the long grass some time and July 4 



note how many minute-winged and creep- 

 ing creatures you can find in five minutes. 

 Search the rough bark of an old tree and 

 catalogue the small life it harbors. Ob- 

 serve as summer advances how active 

 and industrious are the ants, and how 

 everywhere the spiders are embroidering 

 their silken lace upon the grasses and 

 leaves and old woodwork. And wher- 

 ever you go, along the dusty highway, 

 across the meadows, about the garden or 

 through the woods, how an almost innu- 

 merable company of butterflies dance be- 

 fore your steps or rise and dip and cur- 

 vette in the bright air about your head, 

 while at night the moths flock to your 

 lighted windows, equally delicate but less 

 gay of hue, as befits a being whose life is 

 mainly passed in darkness. 



Butterflies are the characteristic of 

 midsummer : 



. . . "pretty genii of the flow'rs, 

 Daintily fed with honey and pure dew." 



That is nearer the truth than the poets 

 sometimes get in their zoology, for the 

 butterflies feed only by pumping up the 

 honeyed moisture held in the cups of the 

 flowers, or by the juices from various rot- 

 ting substances upon which some of the 

 less dainty of them feed. Most of them 

 have but a brief summer of life, seeking 

 with an inborn knowledge that is one of . 



Julys 



