128 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



moth acting as sponsor to these hardy blossoms. Need we doubt 

 that the ancestry of these tiny flowers saw the light obedient to 

 the same divine plan disclosed in the blossom of to day, or that 

 the mission of their companion honey -sippers was ever else than 

 at present ? 



Is not the same conclusion equally irresistible with regard to 

 the other strange, present functions of the butterfly, which form 

 the subject of this paper and which I now illustrate a function 

 which has presumably deteriorated rather than otherwise through 

 the ages. 



Deep in the damp woods of late summer we shall often find a 

 constant presence flitting above the succulent herbage, alighting 

 now here now there, its bright orange wings flashing in the sun- 

 beams, or gently fanning its own shadow as it rests upon some 

 tempting leaf or sprig. Observe its rounds carefully. Here is a 

 thick undergrowth of spikenard, ferns, bedstraw, colt'sfoot, rue, 

 bidens, ampelopsis, aster, wood- nettle, horse-balm, sunflower, and 

 an attendant host of plants. Our butterfly is now sunning its 

 damask feathers on the topmost leaf of yonder wood-nettle, now 

 creeping around its edge, and revealed only by the translucent 

 shadow responding to the gentle fanning motion of the wings. 

 In another moment we catch the fiery gleam in a sunbeam as 

 the sylph again soars above the herbage to settle among the tall 

 sunny leaves beyond; these also are nettles. Now it floats above 

 our heads and alights upon the pale green plant at our elbow; 

 and what is this ? It is a wood-nettle. And thus it flits by the 

 hour, draping the underwood in ethereal festoons from every net- 

 tle spray among the copse. 



A closer scrutiny of these plants will throw a little light upon 

 this discriminating flight. The leaves are seen to be partially 

 devoured, and an occasional one appears to droop with an un- 

 natural attitude, a position readily explained when we discover 

 the angular pitch caused by the severing of the three promi- 

 nent veins close to the stem, the edges of the leaf being also 

 drawn together below. Upon plucking one of these leaves, and 

 looking beneath, we discover the curious recluse, at once explaining 



