350 FLIGHT OF BUTTERFLIES. 



Not only can bees and some beetles pursue their flight in 

 the wind's eye, but even butterflies have been seen, with their 

 " sail-broad vans," making way against it. In power, swift- 

 ness, and grace of motion, " the painted populace" present, in 

 different families, something of the variety which adorns their 

 pinions; but when we look at these summer vagrants, idly 



flitting 



" From bed to bed, from one to t'other border," 



we should hardly expect them ever to exemplify permanence 

 as well as power of flight. We hear, however, not only of 

 migrating birds, but also of migrating butterflies, of which 

 some, not satisfied 



" The woods, the rivers, and the meadows green, 

 With their air-cutting wings to measure wide," 



attempt, occasionally, to " measure ocean." For this purpose 

 they sometimes assemble in gaily-bannered companies, and, in 

 a straightforward continued course, press seaward and over 

 sea, only, probably, to add in most cases to the number of 

 those fair and fragile things which, strewed upon its surface, 

 are for ever serving to augment the perishable " treasures of 

 the deep." 



But we need not follow insects over ocean, or even stir from 

 off our chair, to see the surpassing power of their organs of 

 flight ; or, if we do not now see, we may remember, that the 

 fly, now crawling so feebly up our window, was able, in the 

 sunny heyday of her vigour, to sport above our heads at the 

 rate of above thirty feet in a second, or more than the third of 

 a mile in a minute the third of the distance which a race-horse 

 can achieve in the same period. 



When, from the air, we glance downwards to the waters, we 

 find the finny tribes in like manner equalled, and, size con- 

 sidered, exceeded in their motive powers by a variety of insect 

 swimmers. Those which, in their perfect state, are wont to 

 inhabit or frequently resort to ponds and ditches such, for 



