THROUGH THE YEAR 17 



practice ; and if we have missed them for several 

 seasons we easily confuse them at first on seeing 

 them on the wing again. 



Yet the difference of tens of thousands of years 

 separates utterly the two pearl-bordered fritillaries. 

 I do not know that even an occasional cross or hybrid 

 between them is found by the butterfly collector : 

 I never found one in days when I collected, nor heard 

 of one. But if there is such a cross, it comes to 

 nothing. The two species keep distinct, and I 

 notice that they speedily recognise each other on 

 the wing, after a few giddy rounds of that whirl of 

 inquiry or rivalry which butterflies meeting and 

 passing each other in the air often go through. 



The pearl-bordered fritillaries appeared first, 

 not in the bugle field, but among the hazel and oak 

 underwood shoots. Here they are a- wing from ten 

 in the morning till almost sundown. They are, unlike 

 some kinds of English butterflies, roamers far and 

 wide through the coppices, and are always in the 

 true fritillary haste haste, it seems, to do nothing. 

 The habit of haste aimless haste it appears to be, 

 but we can be sure is not is as marked in these 

 two lovely insects as in the larger high-brown 

 fritillary which hatches out in June. 



I have seen the pearl-bordered fritillaries in past 

 seasons drawing their sweetmeats from the bugle 

 blossoms now and again ; but this time I have not 

 seen one on a flower ; and indeed I think both are 

 of choice far less dainty feeders : they settled often 

 on a bit of moist soil or at the edge of a rut in the 



