THE BAY OF BUTTERFLIES 263 



memory of long-lost Atlantis, so compelling to 

 masculine Catopsilias that the supreme effort of 

 their lives is an attempt to envisage it? "Ab- 

 surd fancies, all," says our conscious entomologi- 

 cal sense, and we agree and sweep them asid*. 

 And then quite as readily, more reasonable scien- 

 tific theories fall asunder, and we are left at last 

 alone with the butterflies, a vast ignorance, and 

 a great unfulfilled desire to know what it all 

 means. 



On this October day the migration of the year 

 had ceased. To my coarse senses the sunlight 

 was of equal intensity, the braeze unchanged, 

 the whole aspect the same and yet something as 

 intangible as thought, as impelling as gravita- 

 tion, had ceased to operate. The tension once 

 slackened, the butterflies took up their more usual 

 lives. But what could I know of the meaning of 

 "normal'* in the life of a butterfly I who 

 boasted a miserable single pair of eyes and no 

 greater number of legs, whose shoulders sup- 

 ported only shoulder blades, and whose youth 

 was barren of caterpillarian memories! 



As I have said, migration was at an end, yet 

 here I had stumbled upon a Bay of Butterflies. 

 No matter whether one's interest in life 



