CHAPTEE VIII 



INSECT LIFE 



How delightful in a winter evening's reverie over the 

 wood fire to think back the butterfly days of a great 

 summer ! I feel now, as I felt long ago, that the 

 freshest of these butterfly days in the wood, days 

 with none of the exquisite bloom of the new summer 

 lost, are when the pearl-bordered fritillaries first 

 appear. The two little fritillary butterflies are on 

 the wing in such scented, sappy hours, when the 

 cool of the rain, and the heat of the sun, in perfect 

 unison, do make days of a wonderful refreshment. 

 Though the orange tip butterfly in some years is not 

 a-wing before the copse fritillaries, it is on the whole 

 a little earlier than they. I look for the orange tip 

 just after the azure-blue butterfly and just before 

 the fritillary. In 1906 I found it out in numbers 

 as early as the 6th of May; and in that year I 

 actually saw an orange tip flying on the 24th of April 

 in London ! 



Hot sun alone does not, I think, ripen and release 

 from its wrap the orange tip butterfly. It needs 

 hot sun shining after or between the showers that 



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