IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 227 
SCALE - WINGED. 
Did you know that Butterflies are scale-winged — that is, that 
their wings are covered with little scales, which lap over each other 
like shingles on the roof of a house? Beautiful scales they are, too, 
of various shapes and most wonderfully painted with all the exqui- 
site shades of color you can imagine. 
But. you cannot see half their beauty, unless you can look 
through a microscope. 
There's another wonderful thing about a Butterfly, and that is 
its trunk. To you— with the naked eye — it looks like a little thread 
coiled up at the end, when not in use ; but examined with a glass, 
it proves to be a perfect and beautiful contrivance for sucking up 
the juices of flowers. One French naturalist watched the living 
Butterfly feed himself from a lump of sugar, through a glass, and 
thus saw just how it was done. First, the little fellow would send 
down from his mouth some liquid, which seemed to dissolve the 
sugar, and then he would suck up the dissolved fluids into his 
mouth. Thus he could eat sugar, and thick honey and syrup, which 
he could not get through his dainty little tubes otherwise. 
But the trunk is not the only beauty about him ; he has lovely 
eyes, and so many of them that it's no wonder he is hard to catch. 
They are what are called compound eyes, and our little Butterfly 
