THE HUMMING-BIRD MOTH. 
201 
grain-fields of the Genesee, of Ohio, of Michigan, it is said to be 
entirely unknown as a field plant. 
It must he the comparative severity of the winters which has 
broken up this very ancient connection in our part of the world ; 
and yet they have at times very severe seasons in France and Ger- 
many, without destroying the field poppies. 
Friday, 21th. — Cooler ; a refreshing shower last evening ; iio 
thunder or lightning. 
The butterflies are very numerous now ; tortoise-shell, black, 
and yellow, with here and there a blue ; large parties of the little 
white kind, and the tiny tortoise-shell, also, are fluttering about 
the weeds. The yellow butterflies with pink markings are the 
most common sort we have here ; they are regular roadsters, con- 
stantly seen on the highway. Last summer about this time, w'hile 
dri\fing between Penn-Yan and Seneca Lake, we found these little 
creatures more numerous than we had ever yet seen them ; there 
had been a heavy rain the day before, and there were many half- 
dried, muddy pools along the road, Avhich seemed to attract these 
butterflies more than the flowers in the meadows ; they are al- 
ways found Jiovering over such spots in summer ; but on that oc- 
casion we saw so many that we attempted to count them, and in 
half a mile we passed seventy, so that in the course of a drive 
of a couple of hours we probably saw more than a thou- 
sand of these pretty creatures stnmg along the highway in little 
flocks. 
There is a singular insect of this tribe, a kind of moth, seen 
about the flower-beds in the summer months. They are so much 
like humming-birds in their movements, that many of the country 
people consider them as a sort of cousin-german of our common 
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