328 THE NETTLE TORTOISE-SHELL BUTTERFLY. 



operations and economy of insects, was consulted 

 on the subject. He found the walls of a church- 

 yard near the place, and the walls of several small 

 villages in the neighbourhood, to be spotted with 

 large drops of a blood-coloured liquid A little time 

 before this he had happened to pick up a large and 

 beautiful chrysalis, which he had carefully laid in a 

 box. Immediately after its transformation into the 

 butterfly state, he remarked that it had left a drop of 

 blood-coloured liquor on the bottom of the box, 

 and that this drop, or stain, was as large as a French 

 sol. The red stains on the walls, on stones near 

 the highways, and in the fields, were found to be 

 perfectly similar to that left on the bottom of the 

 box. M. de Peiresc now no longer hesitated to 

 pronounce that all those blood-coloured stains, 

 wherever they appeared, proceeded from the same 

 cause. The prodigious number of butterflies which 

 he, at the same time, saw flying in the air, confirmed 

 his original idea. He likewise observed that the 

 drops of the miraculous rain were never found in the 

 middle of the town ; that they appeared only in 

 places bordering upon the country ; and that they 

 never fell upon the tops of houses, or upon walls 

 more elevated than the height to which butterflies 

 generally rise. What M. de Peiresc saw himself he 

 showed to many persons of knowledge, or of curio- 

 sity, and established, as an incontestable fact, that 

 the pretended drops of blood were in reality but 

 drops of a red liquid deposited there by butterflies. 

 It is also deserving of remark that all the showers 

 1 



