204 THE BOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



Butterflies. A gorgeous butterfly red, orange, yellow, 

 brown, black and blue, and how much more comes fluttering 

 along, and the impulse suggested by example is to rush after it 

 and crush it inside a cap. Without having any objection to 

 skilful butterfly hunting, we beg to suggest a more excellent 

 way. Let us follow it or depute one of our number to follow it, 

 watching which flowers it visits, contrasting the brilliant upper 

 surface of the wings conspicuous in flight with the much plainer 

 under surface seen when the butterfly rests with upfolded wings. 

 But it also rests on the ground, on a post, on a flower, with the 

 wings fully outspread in the sunlight. A mental photograph 

 must be taken, there is a triangular white mark near the outer 

 tip of the fore-wing, then along the front margin three large dark 

 bars separated by orange, farther back three dark spots (one 

 large and two small) on an orange ground, and there are fine 

 blue crescents round the outer margin of both wings. Look at 

 it, repeat its quarterings, look at it again and make sure of the 

 photograph. Then, when the excursion is over, its name can be 

 discovered, and your observations corroborated, in any good butter- 

 fly book. 1 Of course, its name since we have taken one of the 

 very commonest may have been known all the time the smaller 

 tortoise-shell (Vanessa urticcz\ but that is not the point at all. 



Humble-Bees. On the meadow excursion one should watch 

 the bees visiting the flowers, seeking nectar and pollen and 

 securing unconsciously the important cross-fertilisation. One 

 sees the hive-bees (Apis mellifica), who are of course half-domesti- 

 cated, and many different kinds of wild bees, such as the humble- 

 bees (Bombus). It should be understood (i) that there are many 

 solitary bees, which form no community, such as the carder-bee 

 (Anthidium manicatum, whose cotton- working Gilbert White 

 described, or the burrowing bees, e.g. various species of Halictus 

 and Andrena common in Britain ; (2) that the hive-bees have a 

 society lasting as a society from year to year, and including workers 

 markedly different in structure from the queens and drones ; 

 and (3) that the humble-bees (Bombus) have societies which come 

 to an end when the summer is over, only the queens surviving 

 the winter. To watch how the humble-bees deal with different 



1 See (South) p. 222. 



