SOME ENGLISH BUTTERFLIES 



the reed beds, with its mauve, cottony plumes, the mar- 

 joram flower of the wide thyme-scented downs, and, 

 most of all, on the pale purple, nodding scabious of 

 the autumn pastures and dry slopes. The most splen- 

 did butterfly picture of all the year is one of these 

 wide September hillsides of purple scabious blossom 

 thronged and crowded with the floating and fanning 

 wings of hundreds of butterflies of a dozen different 

 species, varying in hue from cool pure white to the Red 

 Admiral's scarlet-bordered jet, and from the fresh 

 radiance of the Blues and Coppers to the glowing, 

 patterned splendour of the Peacocks and Tortoiseshells 

 and Painted Ladies. Here a blossom bows beneath 

 the weight of a silky-bodied Brimstone, there a 

 Clouded Yellow flashes its rich saffron against the 

 dark, earthy under-side of the strangely fretted 

 wings of a Comma. Dragonflies cruise and hover over 

 the length of the hillside meadow, grasshoppers spring 

 and chirr among the hair-poised blossoms, and a busy 

 plebeian crowd of hive and bumble bees shoulder the 

 butterflies rudely from their foothold upon the mauve 

 button-like heads. Far and wide, where the indivi- 

 dual blossoms of the scabious melt into a purple haze, 

 the wings of this great company of butterflies shift and 

 flash from moment to moment as they probe the honeyed 

 flowers ; one keen wing-profile, or brilliant eye-pat- 

 tern, after another, catches the sight across the purple 



17 2 



