“Will they grow into butterflies like you?” she asked.
“Yes,” was the answer, “but there is something more to see.”
Again Ruth looked, and now saw what appeared to be a little green jewel dotted with golden nails.
“Oh!” she cried, “how lovely!”
“I thought you would say that,” and the monarch fluttered her wings proudly. “That is our chrysalis, the cradle in which we sleep for our great transformation. That is one thing the viceroy can’t do, though she mimics us as much as possible.”
“Mimics you?” repeated Ruth, in surprise.
“Yes, certainly. You see we monarchs are wrapped in a magic perfume—that no birds like, and so they never try to eat us. Now, Mrs. Viceroy hasn’t this perfume, and to protect herself she tries to imitate our family colours, so that the birds, mistaking her for one of us, may leave her alone too. She even flies as we do. See her over there? She is smaller than I am, but quite like me, except for the black line on her hind wings. A careless observer would scarcely notice that, however.”
The monarch floated off to lay some more eggs, and Ruth found herself in the midst of ever so many tawny brown butterflies, all bordered and checkered with black, and having wings covered with silver spots.
“Oh, you are so lovely!” she cried, with shining eyes, and then, as they passed on, calling back their name, “Fritillaries!” “Fritillaries!” she turned to see many other dazzling creatures fluttering about her. Some she had never seen before, but others were like old friends. There were the meadow browns, the stout-bodied coppers, the slender, beautiful blues, and more white cabbage butterflies than she could count. The handsome red admiral flirted with the pretty painted lady, and the mourning cloaks, with their purple-brown wings, yellow-bordered and marked with light blue spots, were flitting about, telling everybody how they had slept all Winter as butterflies, which is most uncommon in the butterfly world, and were for that reason the first to show themselves in the Spring.
“I used to wonder why you were out so early,” said Ruth, “and once I found one of you in a crevice on a Winter day, and I couldn’t understand about it.”