The Strife of March 21 



spring. But it is hardly possible for it to find 

 natural food when it wakes at a time of year when 

 all its blossoms have vanished ; and if it undergoes 

 many of these premature returns of consciousness 

 it is apt to succumb. When a butterfly which has 

 made its appearance in a room at mid-winter has 

 once more sunk into slumber behind a book-case or 

 in some other congenial niche, it is not easy to tell 

 at first sight whether it is alive or dead. Even in its 

 normal sleep it may look very lifeless, with its wings 

 folded and the antennae laid back between their 

 edges. But if it is dead the proboscis, which is curled 

 in front of its body like a watch-spring, will be rigid 

 and brittle ; while the least touch with a needle 

 or grass-stem will prove its elasticity if the insect 

 is still alive. 



Four or five kinds of hibernating butterflies are 

 seen abroad in spring before any of the kinds which 

 emerge from the chrysalis at that season of the year. 

 As they are already winged and mature, less warmth 

 is required to call them forth than is necessary 

 to complete the transformation of the incomplete 

 insect within the shell of the chrysalis and to urge 

 it to burst its bonds. Certain moths and other 

 insects which are less dependent upon sunshine 

 than butterflies are hatched throughout the winter ; 

 but their very independence of sunshine, or even 

 of daylight, deprives their appearance of any of 

 those associations of returning summer which are 

 linked with the first sight of the tawny or golden 

 butterflies hovering in the sunlit lanes and feeding 

 on the new spring flowers. 



