An Experiment in Altruism

by Margaret Pollock Sherwood

But the Hunter of Butterflies wore a look of peace.

I mistook this at first for the peace of attainment. It was not that: he was still pursuing—pursuing his butterfly.

He was, they told me, a noted entomologist. Many years ago he had discovered a very rare butterfly, the Erebia winifredæ. He had classified and named it, but had never been able to follow its entire history. With the scientist’s fine sense of the importance of the least details he was still studying it.

This winter he had come to the city in order to work with a member of the faculty in the university. They were attempting to raise the insect under artificial conditions, and were carefully watching its growth.

The difficulty of observing it in its home is very great, for it can be found only during certain portions of the year, and at great altitudes. It lives in the Himalaya Mountains, and in the Caucasus, just below the snow-line, in the bleak regions of rock and sedge.

I heard the story of its discovery. Years ago, when the scientist was young, he had gone with an exploring party through India to the southern side of the Himalayas. On one long walk he lost his way, and found himself at the bottom of a deep gully, whose walls were apparently too steep to climb. He was alone.

There was nothing to do except to scale the cliff. It was a perilous journey. After hours of painful struggle the young man reached the top, in a state of utter exhaustion. By a last effort he drew himself up over the edge of the precipice, and lay fainting for a time, prostrate on the rock.

When he woke, he found under his outstretched hand a little dark butterfly, with gold dust on its wings. It was his butterfly, and it made his name famous.

Every summer since that time he had climbed to the limit of vegetation, and had camped there on desolate mountain sides for weeks, watching the butterfly’s growth. He knew where and how it laid its eggs. He knew on what it fed. He had watched it change from grub to winged creature, and yet it baffled him.

He could not find out the length of its life. The seasons of warmth at the altitude of its home were short, and a part of its existence was passed in seasons when he could not study it.