THROUGH THE YEAR 89 



on the body ; then we see depressa in all its bizarre, 

 rather repellent beauty at least the great staring 

 eyes of the dragon repel. 



I saw depressa, in a glade in Woodlands Wood, in 

 the New Forest, return to the same dead twig perch 

 after each whizzing excursion in the air. It would 

 bring the prey to this twig, and I could see it feeding 

 there. It attached the value to this bare, burnt twig 

 that the small heath butterfly attaches to a chosen 

 inch of ground and a chosen bennet in a field of rough 

 grass ; and, scared away, it would yet return after a 

 few minutes. The blue dust on the dark, thick body 

 of depressa had nearly all rubbed off ; only two spots 

 or dabs still appeared on either side of the body. 



This dust is like the scales of the butterfly's wing, 

 almost like the bloom indeed that overlies the scales 

 it is spoilt by the least rough usage or by weather. 

 To those who can admire depressa without the reser- 

 vations which I make in admiring it, perhaps the 

 vanishing of the blue dust still leaves the insect very 

 beautiful ; and they may say of it, as Spenser of his 

 mistress, that depressa " adorns all ornament " of 

 colour. None the less, this blue pigment must be 

 valuable to the insect in its career. I have little 

 sympathy with reactionaries who deny the value of 

 colour in courtship. 



Colour may be almost love seen from another side ; 

 as Matthew Arnold tells us beauty is truth. 



But why, as we turn south, should the creatures 

 of colour on the whole grow gayer in tint ? 

 Why should our brimstone butterfly be replaced, 



