74 THE CHOICE OF FOOD BY ANIMALS 



and rarest of our wood butterflies the Queen of 

 Spain fritillary. The fragrant lady's bedstraw supports 

 a host of the brightest and choicest lepidoptera ; cress 

 and rapes supply wholesome diet for the whites and 

 orange-tips. Most of the gem-like blues are reared on 

 clover and leguminous plants, though even in this 

 family there is one the holly blue (Lyccena argiolus) 

 with a depraved taste for holly and ivy leaves. But 

 that is mild provender compared with some. The vast 

 genus of Spurges (Euphorbia), spread over the greater 

 part of the globe, contain a milky juice in great abund- 

 ance and of intense acridity, so painfully poisonous that 

 it is difficult to imagine a digestive apparatus competent 

 to deal with it. Yet in this country we have the spurge 

 hawk-moth (Deiliphila euphorbice), of which the cater- 

 pillar feeds exclusively on the sea-spurge (Euphorbia 

 paralias). 



Perhaps, however, the readiest example of inscrut- 

 able taste in vegetable diet is afforded by the ever- 

 to-be-execrated rabbit. This creature, which, having 

 allowed it to do irreparable injury to our native 

 flora, we have transported to work similar mischief 

 in Australasia, shows a remarkable and unaccountable 

 discretion in its diet. Luckily for us, though greedy, 

 it is not omnivorous. It gnaws the common laurel, 

 which we consider poisonous, and avoids the rhodo- 

 dendron, belonging to the innocuous heath family. 

 It devours crocuses and rejects snowdrops, members 

 of a family very near of kin ; it eats hepaticas to the 

 ground, and avoids their cousins, the winter aconites 



