164 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



the morning and three or four in the afternoon. He 

 must cover, surely, fifteen or twenty miles a day, and 

 the slight breeze against hard wind he is helpless 

 is not always with him. 



The orange tip often is no seeker of the sweets 

 that Nature packs the flowers with in May and June. 

 On the opening day of its season I may not see it 

 once alight on. a blossom and probe for nectar. The 

 seeming object of this lovely butterfly's parade is to 

 find a mate or a rival, or to fly for pleasure of flight 

 in the sun. No orange tip bears another orange tip 

 or a sulphur butterfly to pass within a few yards 

 without flying up to examine the stranger. An 

 orange tip flies to a sulphur, all but touches it, but 

 in less than an instant knows the stranger is not of 

 the orange tip species ; so the two part without show- 

 ing the faintest interest in each other. That odd 

 teetotum twirl, the butterflies revolving round each 

 other several times, only occurs when orange tip 

 meets orange tip, or sulphur meets sulphur. If the 

 search for a mate is the sole incentive that drives the 

 orange tip many miles a day up and down the field and 

 roadside he loves a long strip of rough grass between 

 the road and the old high hedge if nothing else 

 in the insect world of feeling and motive enters, then 

 Nature is rather leisurely in accomplishing her work 

 here. Why days and days of flight in search of a 

 mate, why all this exercise up and down the field 

 and roadside, a hundred journeys and more made 



