A BUTTERFLY EPISODE. 



to gorge himself with cresses. At last, one 

 fine day, when he had eaten his soul's fill, 

 some inner impulse seized him. He began 

 to transform himself, half unconsciously to 

 his own mind, into a boat-shaped chrysalis. 

 There he lay as in a mummy-case, melting 

 slowly away into organic pulp, and growing 

 again by degrees into a full-formed butterfly. 

 All his organs changed ; strange legs and 

 wings budded out on him incontinently. 

 Yet even when he emerged once more from 

 the mummy-case, he had no intuitive know- 

 ledge of himself as a male orange-tip. Still 

 less had he any distinct conception of the 

 female of his species. But, as he floated 

 about on his untried wings, he took no 

 notice at all of any other butterflies, till 

 the moment a mate of his own appeared 

 upon the scene, and then he instantly and 

 unerringly recognized her. The sole ex- 

 planation of this marvel, it seems to me, 

 lies in the fact that his nervous system has 

 in it by inheritance a form or mould if I 



