PART III. 

 THE POETS' INSECTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

 ANTS AND BUTTERFLIES. 



AMONG the morals and maxims drawn from natural history 

 few are so popular, or so unfair, as that which contrasts the 

 "industrious" ant with the "idle" butterfly. It requires 

 only the most rudimentary knowledge of insect life to under- 

 stand this. For the butterfly, after all, is only the winged 

 caterpillar. In a previous stage it worked with monstrous 

 diligence at the work it was given to do, consuming every 

 day ever so many times its own weight of green stuff. Then 

 it went into its chrysalis state and rested for a while and 

 changed itself, and by-and-by it came out of its shell, put on 

 its gay wedding clothes and flew away to find a mate. The 

 honeymoon over, the female set about laying her eggs, and 

 it was probably when it is engaged in this very serious busi- 

 ness that the charge of idleness has attached to it. 



For the insect flutters about the plant which it knows to 

 be the proper food for its young, and settles for half an 

 instant here and half an instant there, its whole demeanour 

 being frivolous and flighty. Such, of course, is not the truth, 

 for every time that the butterfly rested an egg was laid, and 

 while it fluttered, apparently so aimlessly in all directions, it 

 was really in its instinct selecting proper cradles. 



161 T. 



