122 FLORAL AND INSECT ANALOGIES. 



Insect folds its wings, the flower its wing-like petals ; and as 

 flowers love and turn towards the sun, so Butterflies open their 

 pinions to receive his welcome rays, sometimes alternately 

 closing them in fan-like motion, to temper probably his too 

 ardent beams. 



As the blowing of flowers can be forced or retarded by 

 artificial heat or cold, so it has been found with the emerge- 

 raent of Butterflies. Reaumur made many successful experi- 

 ments, by aid of hot-houses and hens, upon various chrysalides, 

 from which he caused the premature evolvement of the perfect 

 insect, and proposed by employment of the same means on an 

 extensive scale, to cause summer flowers and summer flutterers 

 to appear together in the midst of winter. 



Darwin had a pretty fancy that Butterflies usually resemble 

 in colour the flowers they are most accustomed to frequent. 

 The poet-naturalist carried this notion doubtless beyond nature, 

 but the idea is one which seems to shoot less wide of its mark 

 that many aimed from the Litchfield long-bow. There is a 

 very large proportion of white and yellow flowers which we 

 see visited, perhaps, most frequently, by an equally large 

 proportion of white and yellowish Butterflies, owing probably 

 to the preponderance of each. The greater number of blue 

 Butterflies are certainly, however, accustomed to frequent the 

 blue flowers most abounding in chalky soils ; and the rich 

 tone of colouring in our autumn flowers harmonizes well with 

 that of autumn Butterflies. 



We might continue at greater length our remarks on Butter- 

 flies as connected with flowers, which make verily part and 

 parcel of their existence, but space forbids us; and now re- 

 turning to their relations of use, we must notice somewhat 

 more minutely than most people, perhaps, are in the habit of 

 doing, the manner in which the delicate delights of rest and 

 refreshment, provided for them by the flower, are turned to 

 account by these luxurious insects. Let us follow one to the 

 garden. Behold him seated on his velvet cushion, the corolla 



