A BUTTERFLY CHASE 



scious motion that was tremulous with 

 what seemed eagerness. One of them, 

 I noted, had a little triangular bit snipped 

 out of it with a clean cut. Some insect- 

 eating bird had snapped at him not long 

 before, and he had come within a half 

 inch of death. Yet this did not trouble 

 him; very likely he never knew it. It 

 was something else which absorbed him 

 so that he took .no notice of my close 

 approach. And now I could see that his 

 proboscis was uncoiled and apparently 

 he was eating rapidly. Now the pro- 

 boscis of any butterfly is simply a 

 double-barrelled tube through which he 

 sucks honey or other moist nutriment. 

 That a Basilarchia astyanax, or any 

 other butterfly for that matter, should 

 be able to draw nourishment from the 

 dry, rough bark of a pine-tree was suf- 

 ficient cause for astonishment, and I 

 77 



