BUTTERFLIES 169 



The peacock that has them in the same brilliant 

 design as the bird, his namesake, is perhaps the most 

 remarkable, while his congeners, the tortoise-shells, 

 the red admiral, and others, seem to have been inter- 

 rupted when they had no more than sketched out 

 the same adornment. Then the wood-argus, the 

 wall, the large and small heaths, the yellows, the 

 whites, the swallow-tail, some more and some less, 

 are also marked with sham eyes. Perhaps this is the 

 one useful marking that natural selection has fixed 

 upon in the case of the butterflies. Nothing is more 

 disconcerting to a bird, for example, than to see an 

 eye suddenly glaring from an unexpected place. 

 The boldest bird hesitates long before it will go to its 

 nest under the stare of a photographic lens. Possibly 

 the same bird would flee in dismay should a con- 

 templated morsel open two shining eyes, even at the 

 corners of its wings. One or two of the moths have 

 eyes also, but usually, like the eyed hawk, on the 

 hind-wings. Defenceless caterpillardom may some- 

 times be saved by the same device. Our favourite of 

 all these grubs is that of the puss-moth, and we 

 think that nothing in its triple armoury of terrifying 

 appearance is so powerful as the two spots above its 

 red-bordered face, that look just like very malignant 

 eyes. 



But the butterfly is entirely delightful. It has no 

 need of safety other than its wings. The " eye " of a 

 meadow-brown has no terrors, at any rate for the 

 child, and causes no anxiety but lest it should see 

 the captor approaching and convey the prize out of 

 reach. The chase of the butterfly is a rural pursuit 

 that never palls, though its excitements are far out- 



