210 Butterflies in the Garden 



moisture within the bounds of the watered garden. 

 Yet even when they have found such an oasis in 

 their desert, their wandering habits prevent them 

 from settling in it for many days together, as is the 

 way of the larger peacocks and red admirals. " It 

 irk'd him to be here, he could not rest." Such is 

 often the impression left on the observer within 

 the pale of the garden, who sees the small but 

 irrepressibly vital blue or copper press in from the 

 gate to the fields, range for a while up and down the 

 too narrow bounds of the brilliant flower border 

 where the peacocks flit in epicurean content, and, 

 after making a few fruitless casts over the foliage to 

 left and right, depart once more on a wider quest 

 across the meadow. 



In this country the effects of positive drought 

 on butterfly life are seldom or never so severe as to 

 counteract the benefits of continued warmth and 

 sunshine. A cold, unkindly summer not only di- 

 minishes greatly the number of butterflies which 

 haunt the September garden, but depletes the whole 

 stock in a way which leaves its effect on subsequent 

 seasons. Yet it is probable that even a too cold 

 summer is not so unfavourable to the continued 

 abundance of these peacocks, red admirals, and 

 their companions of this time of year, as is a winter 

 of unseasonable and fitful mildness. Having no 

 resources of food for such midwinter periods of 

 wakefulness, they are situated much less happily 

 than the wood-mice and squirrels, which lay up 

 autumn hoards. These butterflies are wholly de- 

 pendent for strength to sustain the long winter fast 



