30 ANIMALS OF NO IMPORTANCE. 



red-handed feeding in broad daylight. For his crime he 

 is to suffer the extreme penalty of the law. 



Although butterflies and moths cannot, strictly speak- 

 ing, be termed inhabitants of my verandah, their visits are 

 so frequent that during the hours of sunshine one or two 

 are always present. Hence I conclude with a word about 

 them. The butterflies and moths, though numerous, are 

 not at their best. The larger species, such as the immense 

 Atlas and the Half-moon, do not appear until the rains. 

 The difference in character between the butterfly and the 

 bee forms a most interesting study. The former is a light- 

 hearted trifler ; he leads an utterly selfish life ; he has no 

 family cares, no aims in life except enjoyment, hence he 

 fritters away his time. Watch a butterfly for five minutes. 

 It is not often that you will be able to keep him in sight for 

 so long a time. He first settles upon a leaf, then flies off, 

 performs a number of zig-zag evolutions in the air, and 

 then returns and sits on, perhaps, the very next leaf. 

 Now, a bee would, in the first place, never waste her time 

 in visiting leaves which afford no food, and, secondly, if 

 she did, she would pass direct from one leaf to another 

 without performing a number of elegant but useless gyra- 

 tions in the air. The butterfly lives for himself, the bee 

 for others. The butterfly exists that he may enjoy life ; 

 the bee that she may work for and support a large family. 

 Not a moment does the busy bee lose in frittering away 

 her time. She goes to one of the honeysuckle plants that 

 creep up the pillars of my verandah, and visits flower 

 after flower in the most methodical fashion, taking from 

 each a sweet draught of honey, and in return acting as 

 pollen-carrier. I have timed her, and it is no unusual 

 thing for a bee to visit seventeen flowers in a minute. So 

 hard does she work that some naturalist I forget who 

 once declared that bees had to take so much stimulant in 

 order to brace themselves up for their labours that they do 

 most of their honey-seeking in a state of semi-intoxication. 

 Whether this is the case I do not know. But two things 



