42 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 
nately bemoaned my human limitation of vision, 
and rejoiced that I could focus clearly, both upon 
my butterfly eggs a foot away, and upon the 
spiral nebula swinging through the ether perhaps 
four hundred and fifty light-years from the earth. 
I unswung my pocket-lens,—the infant of the 
microscope,—and my whole being followed my 
eyes; the trees and sky were eclipsed, and I hov- 
ered in mid-air over four glistening Mars-like 
planets—seamed with radiating canals, half in 
shadow from the slanting sunlight, and _ sil- 
houetted against pure emerald. The sculpturing 
was exquisite. Near the north poles which 
pointed obliquely in my direction, the lines broke 
up into beads, and the edges of these were frilled 
and scalloped; and here again my vision failed 
and demanded still stronger binoculars. Here 
was indeed complexity: a butterfly, one of those 
black beauties, splashed with jasper and beryl, 
hovering nearby, with taste only for liquid - 
nectar, yet choosing a little weed devoid of flower 
or fruit on which to deposit her quota of eggs. 
She neither turned to look at their beauties nor 
trusted another batch to this plant. Somehow, 
someway, her caterpillar wormhood had carried, 
through the mummified chrysalid and the rein- 
