Beautiful Butterflies* 87 



greater things than it is permitted man's philosophy to 

 dream of here. 



"But to me, trifling as this little incident may appear 

 to many, the results through life have been neither un- 

 important, useless, nor uninfluential ; for it is to it I 

 stand indebted for many a happy hour. That c poor 

 insect ' awakened a taste which has never slumbered ; 

 and the cultivation of Natural History has been my 

 solace in times and seasons, when the mind required 

 something to fall back upon, apart from the business 

 and pursuits of the world. It so happened that from 

 the time I have alluded to until a few summers ago, in 

 one of the mountain passes of the Pyrenees, I had never 

 met with a single living specimen of Vanessa antiopa, 

 when, on a lovely day, on a spray the very counterpart 

 of that of the days of my childhood, I saw the expanded 

 wings of this insect, and the days of ' auld lang syne/ 

 which first introduced it to my notice, came across my 

 mind vivid and clear as though but of yesterday. This 

 summer, again (and not unfrequently) I fell in with 

 this associate of my early years. Children, indeed, may 

 they be called of the sun. In the hot and sultry hours 

 of noonday, they would flit by, rendering it almost 

 impossible to watch their course ; if in these flights two 

 or three met in the glade, they paused in their speed, 

 and fluttering together, so busied themselves in conflict 

 of rivalry or affection, I know not which, that I more 



