"That's right; and you have got a lot of maggots in your net as well, and stirred up the stench most tremendously. Make haste and kill the butterfly and come away, or you will catch a fever," said Jimmy.
The gorgeous insect having been secured in Dick's collecting box, they went off in search of other prey. On a common just beside the wood they found abundance of the beautiful blue butterflies, which shone like flakes of summer sky, and also the small copper butterfly, which rivals the most brightly burnished copper in its sheen. These were playing about in the greatest abundance, the small coppers settling on a blue flower, or a blue butterfly on a red flower, forming most artistic contrasts of colour.
The Haunt of the Purple Emperor.
From its throne on the top of a tall nettle, where it sat fanning the air with its black, crimson-barred wings, Dick captured a magnificent red admiral, and shortly after another of the same species. Gorgeous as the upper surface of the wings of this butterfly is, the under side is quite as beautiful in a quieter way, with its delicate tracery of brown and grey.
While Dick was setting the butterfly in his box, Frank leaned against the trunk of an oak-tree, and as he did so he caught sight of a moth which was resting upon it. It was a large thick-bodied moth, and Dick on being appealed to said it must be a buff-tip moth, from the large patches of pale buff colour at the ends of its wings. Frank said,—
"I should not have seen that moth if my face had not almost touched it. Its colour suits the tree-trunk so admirably that it looks just like a piece of the rough bark. I suppose it knows that, and rests on the oak-tree for safety."
"Yes," said Dick; "I have read that many moths and butterflies are so like the substances on which they rest by day, that they can scarcely be distinguished from them, and of course there must be a meaning in it. The lappet-moth looks exactly like two or three oak-leaves stuck together, and its wings are folded in a peculiar manner, so as to keep up the delusion. There are caterpillars too which can stiffen themselves and stand out on end, so as to look like sticks."
"It is the same with birds'-eggs," said Frank. "Those which are laid on the ground without any attempt at concealment are of such a colour that you can hardly see them. For instance, take a partridge or pheasant. How like their eggs are in colour to the dead leaves of the ditch where they nest. The same with the lapwings, and all the plover tribe. Coots and water-hens' eggs are so like their nests, that at a little distance you cannot tell whether there are eggs in or not."