94 HIGH LIFE. 



sun-smitten slopes, he sails off towards them lazily, like 

 a grand signior who amuses himself. No regular plod- 

 ding through a monotonous spike of plain little bells for 

 him : what he wants is brilliant colour, bold advertise- 

 ment, good honey, and plenty of it. He doesn't care to 

 search. Who wants his favours must make himself con- 

 spicuous. 



Now, plants are good shopkeepers ; they lay themselves 

 out strictly to attract their customers. Hence the 

 character of the flowers on this beeless belt of mountain 

 side is entirely determined by the character of the 

 butterfly fertilisers. Only those plants which laid 

 themselves out from time immemorial to suit the butter- 

 flies, in other words, have succeeded in the long run in 

 the struggle for existence. So the butterfly-plants of the 

 butterfly-zone are all strictly adapted to butterfly tastes 

 and butterfly fancies. They are, for the most part, 

 individually large and brilliantly coloured : they liave 

 lots of honey, often stored at the base of a deep and 

 open bell which the long proboscis of the insect can 

 easily penetrate : and they habitually grow close together 

 in broad belts or patches, so that the colour of each 

 reinforces and aids the colour of the others. It is this 

 cumulative habit that accounts for the marked flower- 

 bed or jam-tart character which everybody must have 

 noticed in the high Alpine flora. 



Aristocracies usually pride themselves on their anti- 

 quity : and the high life of the mountains is undeniably 

 ancient. The plants and animals of the butterfly-zone 

 belong to a special group which appears everywhere in 

 Europe and America about the limit of snow, whether 



