58 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



do no appreciable harm to a crop of fruit ; their flexible 

 sucker or proboscis takes a minute liquid draught where 

 birds or wasps or weather has broken the skin. Even in 

 the larval stage most of the Vanessae feed on thistles and 

 nettles ; indeed, with the exception of the two cabbage 

 whites, no butterfly does harm to farm or garden at any 

 period of its existence. The destructive caterpillars are 

 those of certain moths. 



One striking feature of the Vanessae is their possession 

 of only four active legs ; the front pair are dwarfed and 

 apparently useless. So far from this making them feeble or 

 awkward, these butterflies seem to walk more gracefully and 

 lightly on two pairs of legs than other butterflies on three. 

 Another peculiarity is the great contrast between the brilliant 

 patterns of their wings above and their duskiness beneath. 

 The under side of the red admiral has a delicate damask 

 pattern of pink and grey, and the painted lady is a little 

 gayer. But the tortoiseshells and the comma are almost 

 covered with dense dark streaks ; and the under side of a 

 peacock is as black as a piece of charcoal, or the under side 

 of a dark tree fungus. This is a case in which the protective 

 effect of their markings can hardly be doubted. Peacocks 

 and tortoiseshells naturally hibernate in heaps of brushwood 

 and old hollow trees, hanging with folded wings and antennae 

 hidden between them. Against their dusky background 

 their under sides must often be practically invisible. The 

 under side of the peacock in particular is amazingly like the 

 slightly ridged surface of old blackened wood. Sometimes 

 these butterflies hibernate indoors, creeping into dark cup- 

 boards or behind bookcases. In such places they seem 

 to have no instinct of settling on a surface of like colour ; 

 they will go to sleep for the winter on a light picture- frame, 

 or buff distempered wall. Brimstone butterflies, on the other 



