INSECT LIFE 191 



egg, seed, or chrysalid. This compression of life is 

 as curious to consider as the sleep of life in winter. 

 Such a trifle of matter serves as a receptacle for the 

 divine spark. 



There is one spot, about midway up the slope, where 

 the larger knapweed grows, and here in later summer 

 I have seer? the six spot burnet moths settling for rest 

 as the afternoon begins to grow cool, for the burnet is 

 a moth of the day. The burnet moths are here in 

 January obscure in the frozen slope, the bronze and 

 red and the high polish of their wings and bodies, for 

 they belong to a great branch of Nature which is ever 

 being shrivelled up into all but nothing, and ever 

 re-created into fresh and brilliant life ; is not a moth 

 egg or a moth chrysalid, or the seed of an annual 

 wild flower next to nothing in our eyes ? It is the 

 same with knapweed, which is also scattered obscurely 

 over this bare slope, waiting for the full, hot breath of 

 summer. The burnet moths spend summer nights on 

 knapweed. On this slope I have noticed that the 

 knapweed is reserved for the burnet. This high- 

 coloured insect sleeps on the high-coloured flower. 

 Is this a bit of evidence for the theory of colour 

 protection the moth matching the flower, so that 

 keen-eyed enemies may not find and snatch it ? 

 Finding two or three burnets clinging to the green 

 prickly knob under the blossom.. I thought it might 

 be a little evidence. There is green about the burnet 

 moth's dress that might be said to match the knob of 



