SOME ENGLISH BUTTERFLIES 



also a definite distinction of colour which separated it 

 from the rich and stately insect still to be seen by every 

 August visitor to the Alps or the Rhine. Even within 

 the bounds of England itself, where there is no such 

 rigorous separation of races as is imposed by the barrier 

 of the sea or great mountain ranges, the tendency to 

 such local differences is often seen at work. Those 

 large and handsome moths, the Fox, the Oak Eggar 

 and the Drinker (of which the two former are as sun- 

 loving as the Brimstone itself) display a remarkable 

 difference between the big, bright-coloured insects of 

 the South, and the small, dark race of the North. 



As April swells into May, and May into June, the 

 tribes of the butterflies increase, until about midsummer 

 and hay-time the greatest number of species are on the 

 wing at any one moment of the year. In these earlier 

 days of summer the brightest pictures of butterfly life 

 are to be seen in the broken woods and copses, and all 

 such clean, luxuriant places where the sun shines 

 freely down upon a mixed carpet of many-coloured 

 flowers, and green bosses of irregular verdure mount- 

 ing to the tree-tops in the light. As the woods and 

 copses deepen to the full luxuriance of May, year by 

 year the quiet, blossom-starred rides are filled with the 

 chequered red-brown wings of the two smaller Pearl- 

 bordered species of Fritillary, first of their splendid 

 tribe. No less faithful to the wood-ride and to May 



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