THE BAY OF BUTTERFLIES 261 



may be equal. But the irresistible maelstrom im^ 

 pels only the males. Whence they come or wby 

 they go is as utterly unknown to us as why the 

 females are immune. 



Once, from the deck of a steamer, far off the 

 Guiana coast, I saw hosts of these same great saf- 

 fron-wings flying well above the water, headed 

 for the open sea. Behind them were sheltering 

 fronds, nectar, soft winds, mates ; before were cor- 

 roding salt, rising waves, lowering clouds, a 

 storm imminent. Their course was NNW, they 

 sailed under sealed orders, their port was Death. 



Looking out over the great expanse of the Ma- 

 zaruni, the fluttering insects were usually rather 

 evenly distributed, each with a few yards of clear 

 space about it, but very rarely I have seen it 

 only twice a new force became operative. Not 

 only were the little volant beings siphoned up in 

 untold numbers from their normal life of sleep- 

 ing, feeding, dancing about their mates, but they 

 were blindly poured into an invisible artery, 

 down which they flowed in close association, 

 veritables corpuscules de papillons, almost touch- 

 ing, forming a bending ribbon, winding its way 

 seaward, with here and there a temporary fray- 

 ing out of eddying wings. It seemed like a way- 



