CHAPTER VIII 

 BUTTERFLY-FLOWERS 



FLOWERS are the playground of butterflies, where all 

 day long in warm, sunny weather they flit about "like 

 tickled flowers with flowers." Pirouetting the hours 

 away in airy dances and free from the care of providing for their 

 offspring, butterflies are permitted by Nature to enjoy a greater 

 amount of pleasure than is granted to any other of her insect 

 children. Their beautiful colors have made them the favorites 

 of collectors, and led Jean Paul to call them "the flowers of the 

 air." When they migrate in vast numbers, as they occasionally 

 do, they fill the air with clouds of color comparable to the un- 

 broken sheets of bloom displayed by the mountain-laurel and 

 the flame-colored azalea. The beauty and brilliancy of the 

 bird-winged butterflies {Ornithoptera) in the oriental tropics, 

 says Wallace, are indescribable; and the capture of a new 

 species filled him with such intense joy that on taking it out 

 of his net and opening its glorious wings, his heart began to 

 beat violently, and he felt much more like fainting than he had 

 done when in apprehension of immediate death. 



In the forests of the Amazon, says Bates, brilliant-hued 

 butterflies occur in so great numbers and in such endless diver- 

 sity that they compensate for the scarcity of flowers and are a 

 feature in the physiognomy of the landscape. On the moist 

 sand-beaches of the river vast numbers of sulphur-yellow 

 and orange butterflies congregate in densely packed masses 

 two or three yards in circumference and resemble beds of 

 yellow crocuses ; while flitting about among the trees a butter- 



