THE BUTTERFLY AND MOTH. 177 



A butterfly, when it is feeding, flies round some flower and settles 

 upon it. The trunk is then uncurled, and thrust out either 

 wholly or in part, and is employed in searching the flower to its 

 very bottom, let it be ever so deep. This search being re- 

 peated seven or eight times, the butterfly then passes to another, 

 and continues to hover over those agreeable to its taste, like a 

 bird over its prey. This trunk consists of two equal hollow 

 tubes, nicely joined to each other, like the pipes of an organ. 



Such is the figure and conformation of these beautiful insects, 

 that cheer our walks, and give us the earliest intimations of 

 summer. But it is not by day alone that they are seen flutter- 

 ing wantonly from flower to flower, as the greatest number of 

 them fly by night, and expand the most beautiful colouring at 

 those hours when there is no spectator. This tribe of insects 

 has therefore been divided into Diurnal and Nocturnal Flies, or, 

 more properly speaking, into Butterflies and Moths ; the one 

 flying only by day, the other most usually on the wing in the 

 night. They may be easily distinguished from each other by 

 their horns or feelers ; those of the butterfly being clubbed, or 

 knobbed at the end, those of the moth tapering finer and finer 

 to a point. To express it technically — the feelers of but lei flies 

 are clavated, those of moths are filiform. 



The butterflies, as well as the moths, employ the short life 

 assigned them in a variety of enjoyments. Their whole time is 

 spent either in quest of food, which every flower offers, or in 

 pursuit of the female, whose approach they can often perceive at 

 two miles' distance. Their sagacity in this particular is not less 

 astonishing than true ; but by what sense they are thus capable 

 of distinguishing each other at such distances, is not easy to con- 

 ceive. It cannot be by the sight, since such small objects as 

 they are must be utterly imperceptible at half the distance at 

 which they perceive each other ; it can scarcely be by the sense 

 of smelling, since the animal has no organs for that purpose. 

 Whatever be their powers of perception, certain it is, that the 

 male, after having fluttered, as if carelessly, about for some 

 time, is seen to take wing, and go forward, sometimes for two 

 miles together, in a direct line to where the female is perched 

 on a flower. 



The general rule among insects is, that the female is larger 

 than the male ; and this obtains particularly in the tribe that I 

 am describing. The body of the male is smaller and slenderer, 

 that of the female more thick and oval. Previous to the junc- 

 tion of these animals, they are seen sporting in the air, pursuing 

 and flying from each other, and preparing, by a mock combat 



