144 



STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



haunting the crevices of the steep aiguilles, have served as modest 

 factors in that process of disintegration which has hurled this vast 

 burden of moraine upon the sea of ice "Saxa-fraga, I break a 

 stone," says the etymologist. 



Some authorities affirm that the "semicolon," which is so 

 wonderfully discriminating in the Nettle family, as already shown, 

 is occasionally found on the Linden. I have never happened to 

 verify this statement. It is certainly not a common choice of the 

 insect in the localities which I have frequented, and I half sus- 

 pect that the placing of that " Linden " egg was a case of careless 

 mispunctuation on the part of the " semicolon " (if not of the au- 

 thor), or may be referred to some lapsing ancestor which has 

 bequeathed his degeneracy to a single small line of descendants. 



In a former work I have alluded to those pretty petal bowers 

 upon the everlasting in which the spiny, white-spotted caterpillar 

 of the hunter's butterfly lies concealed by day, or hangs its jew- 

 elled chrysalis of all its tribe the true model of the poet: 



"I'd be a butterfly born in a bovver." 



Other observers have found the larvae on many plants of the 

 same genus only, and in the one next allied, Antennaria. But 

 Scudder says the "forget-me-not," an unassociated plant, is also 

 included among its diet. There is some mistake here. Let us 

 hope that the fickle deserter may yet listen to the message of the 

 Flora Symbolica, and return to its deserted immortelles. 



Our Painted Lady butterfly is another interesting exception, as 

 showing a dual botanical mission in selecting the plants of two 

 natural orders, and never going outside of them, representing, 

 doubtless, an hereditary choice in each given brood, rather than 

 mixed impartially in one. The caterpillar is quite commonly found 

 upon thistles of all kinds, constructing a web -tent hung from the 

 spiny points of the leaves, whence it emerges at night to feed. 

 "It is found, also," says an authority, "on sunflower, hollyhock, 

 burdock, and other rough-leaved plants," but these other "rough- 

 leaved plants" could most certainly be traced to one of the two 



