MIGRATION OF BUTTERFLIES 
W HEN we are confronted with the great and miraculous 
phenomenon of migration, we are at once brought face 
to face with one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of 
the many mysteries occurring in Nature ; a mystery that has 
attracted the attention of writers of all ages of the past. 
What is the strange sense that governs and guides not only 
the higher types, but many of the lower forms of animated 
creatures on their right path to some distant land over vast 
expanses of ocean ? We modern scientists can no more give 
an explanation of this wonderful phenomenon than could the 
writers of antiquity. This extraordinary faculty has been 
called by some authors hereditary instinct, which is no 
solution to the problem, but merely a casting aside of the 
question for the want of a reasonable answer. 
Migration is a faculty that baffles explanation. The 
wonderful migratory sense is possessed not only by mammals, 
birds, reptiles, fishes and insects, but is also a faculty inherent 
to uncivilised races of mankind ; especially is it found among 
the Australian aborigines, the American Indians, the Samoyeds 
and other dwellers of the Arctic. Although gifted with the 
sense in a very high degree, these people are quite at a loss 
to explain how they find their way from one place to another 
without guidance. To them it is an inborn accomplishment, 
unconsciously and continually exercised during their exist¬ 
ence. Civilised men depend upon each other for their 
guidance, and therefore have no need to exercise the sense, 
which has, therefore, gradually faded away. 
Passing from the higher forms of animal life to the lower, 
we find the migratory sense highly developed in many insects 
of various orders, including butterflies, moths, dragonflies, 
beetles, locusts and other kinds. Even such frail and tiny 
creatures as the .1 phides possess it. They are frequently met 
with during still, warm, spring and autumn weather passing 
through the air in countless myriads, and often in such density 
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