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butterflies are to be found, and there we can feel sure, when there is 
no want of sunshine, of seeing one’s self surrounded by many forms 
of these children of the sun, whose number and beautiful colours 
would amaze the northern collector... ..... If we walk along the 
sandy or gravelly bed of a nearly dry stream during the hottest part 
of the day, we shall disturb butterflies at almost every step, especially 
Papitionide and Pieride, which sit there on the damp ground to 
refresh themselves with visible pleasure, but with wings closed so 
that they are scarcely discernible, and you suddenly see swarms of 
such butterflies fluttering up into the air before your feet. I was 
once travelling in South-west Celebes when my companion suddenly 
exclaimed as we were crossing a nearly dry brook, ‘Oh, look, what a 
beautiful flower!’ And on looking where he pointed, I saw in the 
bed of the stream amongst the damp gravel a beautiful orange- 
coloured flower, with a white centre, about ten centimetres in 
diameter. The strangeness of the occurrence led me to step nearer 
in order to observe it more closely, when what did I see? The 
flower consisted of two concentric rings of butterflies (Ca/Zdryas 
scylla) which had closed their wings, which are yellow and orange 
beneath, and were busily sucking up the moisture from the damp 
sand, and thus represented, in the most closely deceptive manner, 
the petals of a flower. They surrounded five of another white 
species of /veris, similarly occupied, which thus seemed to form the 
white centre of the flower. I still remember the amazement of my 
travelling companion when, on my nearer approach, the whole flower 
dissolved into a swarm of butterflies... . 2... I afterwards saw in 
another part of South-west Celebes another beautiful flower of the 
same kind, in which the petals were composed of a number of the 
red Pieris zarinda along with some yellow and white Pieride. ” 
I have myself noticed the resemblance that the chance arrange- 
ment of the blue butterflies may bear to a flower when several of 
them are collected round a tiny damp spot with their heads almost 
meeting towards the centre. 
In “ Nature” (May 17th, 1883, p. 55) appeared a letter from Mr. 
E. Dukinfield Jones, in which he stated that he had observed “a 
kind of moth” in Brazil engaged in sucking up water in large 
quantity through its proboscis. This brought a very interesting 
paper from Baron, who, writing from Antananarivo, Madagascar, 
says, “ This strange habit is not confined to the moth in question, 
as I have observed the same thing in two species of butterfly, Papo 
ortzaba and Appias saba, and imagine that the phenomenon is by no 
means rare. ‘These two butterflies are very common by the sides of 
streams and damp places on the Ankay Plain of Madagascar. 
“One morning, whilst sitting by the side of one of these streams, I 
noticed the Pupzio, which is an insect measuring four inches across 
the wings, resting on a wet bank, and, wishing to procure it as a 
specimen, I approached it as gently as possible, the creature being 
apparently so absorbed in what it was about as to be totally uncon- 
