42 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



nately bemoaned my human limitation of vision, 

 and rejoiced that I could focus clearly, both upon 

 my butterfly eggs a foot away, and upon the 

 spiral nebula swinging through the ether perhaps 

 four hundred and fifty light-years from the earth. 

 I unswung my pocket-lens, the infant of the 

 microscope, and my whole being followed my 

 eyes ; the trees and sky were eclipsed, and I hov- 

 ered in mid-air over four glistening Mars-like 

 planets seamed with radiating canals, half in 

 shadow from the slanting sunlight, and sil- 

 houetted against pure emerald. The sculpturing 

 was exquisite. Near the north poles which 

 pointed obliquely in my direction, the lines broke 

 up into beads, and the edges of these were frilled 

 and scalloped; and here again my vision failed 

 and demanded still stronger binoculars. Here 

 was indeed complexity: a butterfly, one of those 

 black beauties, splashed with jasper and beryl, 

 hovering nearby, with taste only for liquid 

 nectar, yet choosing a little weed devoid of flower 

 or fruit on which to deposit her quota of eggs. 

 She neither turned to look at their beauties nor 

 trusted another batch to this plant. Somehow, 

 someway, her caterpillar wormhood had carried, 

 through the mummified chrysalid and the rein- 



