we have studied at large, perched, as we saw it, rather near the ground, often 

 within a few inches of it — and there are evident traces of ground-' picturing' 

 in its beautiful mottled pattern. Thus it is something of a connecting link 

 between the tree-bark butterflies and our fourth group of ' closed- winged 

 sedentaries,' the ground- picturers. The variety in the at once epitomized 

 and generalized ground-picturing patterns worn by these low-perching but- 

 terflies is almost boundless, and it would be folly for us here to attempt any- 

 thing beyond a brief general description of a few main types. Some of the 

 species belonging to this group are haunters of open fields and meadows, 

 and there is accordingly a frequent outcropping of grass- or even field-flower- 

 picturing in their costumes. But by far the greater number, at least among 

 tropical butterflies, are sylvan, and the most prevalent feature of their widely 

 varying patterns is the picturing of prostrate dead leaves and sticks. In one 

 form or another, in more or less clear development, almost all the sylvan 

 ground-perching butterflies wear these pictures. Such things as several dead 

 leaves together, overlapping, each with a dark shadow underneath its border, 

 blent softly on one side and on the other, ending in sharp contrast against the 

 bright edge of the leaf which casts it ; leaves partly curled up, with holes and 

 ragged borders, crowded and distorted in perspective; dull sticks with clear- 

 cut shadows, bright, strawlike sticks standing out over broad, blurred shad- 

 ows ; or objects like these combined into fine, sharply mottled patterns by per- 

 spective, — such are a few of the commoner details of the unlimitedly various 

 backgrounds of forest floor against which these butterflies are seen, when 

 they are seen at all ; and such, by the same token, and in very truth, are the 

 details of their equally various and marvelously potent obliterative picture- 

 patterns. Being such little creatures, and sitting so low down, they are secure 

 of comparatively near backgrounds — relatively, for instance, to the species 

 which perch high up on small twigs and leaves, or even those that sit with 

 perpendicularly folded wings on tree trunks. On the other hand, their case 

 is different from that of the flatly applied lepidoptera, whether moths or but- 

 terflies, and whether of tree trunks or the ground, in that their backgrounds 



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