Butterflies.
Who has not watched with interest these little insects of the spring and summer? Who has not been struck with the elegant beauty of these creatures—
Which flutter round the jasmine stems,
Like winged flowers, or flying gems?
Who has not watched them, hovering over the flowers, more than rivalling these lovely creations of the garden and the meadow, in the splendor of their colors? And who has not seen them resting on the flower, with a touch so light as not to make even the slenderest stalk bend? Who has not seen them reposing on the bosom of a flower, opening and shutting their gaudy wings to the summer dew, and alternately raising and lowering their long, and slender antennæ or feelers? And who has not stopped to see them unroll their long tube, coiled up like a French horn, and apply it to the sucking up of the nectar of the flowers? How beautiful are these creatures, and how beautifully did old Spenser describe one of them almost three hundred years ago!
“The velvet nap which on his wings doth lie,
The silken down with which his back is dight—
His broad and outstretched horns, his airy thigh—
His glorious colors and his glistening eye!”
Distant view of Vesuvius.