SOME ENGLISH BUTTERFLIES 



" Unpiloted in the sun . . . 

 With idle effort plundering one by one 

 The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms." 



ROBERT BRIDGES. 



MOTHS and butterflies alike are embraced in one great 

 order of insects, and the scientific distinction between 

 them is often uncertain and obscure. But the butter- 

 flies have, above all, a delight of pure and ardent 

 living in the sunshine which is the real distinction 

 of their race, though the needs of science may have 

 enforced recourse to an exacter standard of discrimina- 

 tion based upon the form and fashion of their feeler- 

 tips. There are a few moths, it is true, which love 

 the sunshine better than the night ; but no single 

 butterfly has willing traffic with the hours of darkness, 

 unless, exceptionally and rarely, for some syrup- 

 loving and bibulous Red Admiral, which may be 

 found still clinging drowsily in its cups to a rotting 

 pear or plum in the warm September garden, under 

 the canopy of a moonless sky. Even more than the 



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