Marvels of the Universe 859 
sombre background render them in- 
visible to other than accustomed eyes. 
All this time the Nature-lover can be 
searching them out in their accustomed 
haunts and taking notes undisturbed. 
But butterflies are abroad in the 
sunlight, and an entirely different 
scheme of colouring is necessary to 
render them invisible. Of course, there 
are some which appear to scorn 
danger, and flash their colours as they 
fly; but there are many others which 
take advantage of Nature’s secret 
alchemy to render themselves as im- 
mune as may be from attack. The 
little Blues, which frequent open 
meadow-land and are such children of 
the sun, have wings that might very 
well be fragments of the summer sk’es 
themselves, for in them is the same 
deep, clear colour, while even the vague 
shimmer of a summer haze is imitated 
by the long silken plumage which covers 
them. Watch these little summer 
sprites as they flutter in the air, watch 
them as they dance giddily over the 
meadow. How soon they are lost to 
THE COMMA BUTTERFLY. 
The ragged appearance of the wings and the dull grey-brown of the 
sight! They seem to melt into the sadeitigce admirably imitate the dry and withered appearance of a 
sky and in a twinkling become invisible 
as the atoms of the atmosphere. There is the secret of their colouring: their blueness renders 
them invisible in their flight. A similar case of invisibility is afforded by the Apollo, only here the 
effect is produced by the transparency of the wings, which are as fine as gauze, slightly marked with 
a few grey pencil-lines, and one or two well-defined red eyes bordered with black on both upper- 
and under-wings. These eyes, however, are inconspicuous in flight. Another butterfly with strong 
protective coloration is the Orange Tip, with wings that on the under-sides are strongly mottled 
with green and white. This at first glance would appear to be anything rather than of a “ pro- 
tective ’’ tendency ; but wait till the butterfly is resting on a flower, such as the wild parsley, 
where innumerable white petals and little green sepals are clustered together ; then it is impossible 
to distinguish which is flower and which is butterfly. 
The Green Hairstreak, again, is a butterfly which in flight has the appearance of burnished 
bronze; but at rest the upper-side of the wings is hidden and only the underneath is visible. The 
surface is thickly powdered with a metallic green bloom, which so nearly approaches the colour of 
foliage that the Green Hairstreak is then very difficult to discover. An instance was brought to 
the writer’s notice of a beech hedge where a great company of Hairstreaks was congregated. The 
butterflies arrested the attention as they danced hither and thither in the sun; but when, 
one by one, they settled down among the green beechen leaves, they disappeared as completely 
as though they had been phantoms. 
Some of these clever mimics—and this is especially the case with such butterflies as come out 
in the autumn—adopt the appearance of withered leaves. Two good examples are here illustrated. 
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