THE FLOWER MARKET HI 



had better not boast, I can tell him, for there is 

 not a beak in all Birdland that dare even so 

 much as bite one of us ! " And his companions 

 waved their wings in approval. 



Tommy-Anne did not speak, but she looked 

 as if she thought this statement 

 rather a whoppergrass, and the 

 butterfly continued : 



" Frail as I look, I am named 

 the Monarch, and I can 

 fly hundreds of miles with- 

 out resting, passing over 

 seas from island to island, like 

 the fleetest-winged bird. 1 Last 

 September, when my black, 

 white, and yellow caterpillar 

 had completed his changes, and 

 I came from the cocoon, I joined my brothers in 

 the great waste fields over the hills by the salt 

 water, where are acres of the milkweeds for which 

 we are the messengers. 



" Shaw-shaw, the Swallow, was gathering his 

 flocks at the same time. We circled together 

 over the sands, and travelled southward, casting 

 shadows on the water-ripples as we passed over. 

 Some of us tarried in Florida with the Thrushes, 

 1 See Guide to Butterflies, H. S. Scudder. 



