66 WILD BIRDS 



SUN AND SHADE BUTTERFLY 



To make a little series of exact butterfly studies, 

 original studies, means many hours watching and 

 searching spread over years. It often means dis- 

 appointments too. One cannot count on finding 

 this butterfly or that on a certain day or week in 

 the summer, for their seasons vary with the weather. 

 The scarcer or the more local butterflies have a 

 way, moreover, of suddenly disappearing, from no 

 cause one can discover, from their known haunts. 



At a certain spot in the south I used to find the 

 wood-white butterfly, and the speckled-wood butter- 

 fly. The speckled-wood came out late in the 

 summer almost last of the butterflies and I 

 always found it in the same spot, a narrow track 

 winding in and out among the wands of hazel and 

 the oak trees. Even on cloudless days this walk 

 through the woods is half in shade if half in sun, 

 and I came to associate the speckled-wood, like the 

 white admiral butterfly, with a moving network of 

 light and shadow made by the sun playing in and 

 out among the rustling leaves. Now after many 

 years I have found the speckled-wood once again 

 though much earlier in the summer, and far from 

 the hazel and oak wood. Watching it, I am con- 

 firmed in my belief that it is a butterfly that loves 

 a blend of sun and shade. How different the 

 speckled-wood from its near relative, the wall 

 butterfly, which cannot have too fierce a downpour 

 of light and heat ! 



