Yet Ajax will fight in single combat with any live butterfly, and so will Palamedes, Turnus, and Cresphontes.
If a female Luna moth is placed in a cage of mosquito netting and hung out of the window at night she is almost certain to attract all the male Luna moths in the neighbourhood before morning. In this case, as it is in the case of the other moths of the same group, it is the odor that attracts.
But in the case of a dead Ajax butterfly it appears to be colour even more than form; and it can scarcely be odor, because the Ajax butterflies of both sexes decoy to a dead and dried butterfly of either sex. With this abstruse observation, mademoiselle, I, personally, retire into the jungle to peep out at a passing vehicle driven by an Ethiopian known as Denis, and containing two young people of sexes diametrically opposed. And I am pleasantly conscious that I can no longer conceal their identity from you, mademoiselle.
"No," she said, "I know who they are. Please continue about them."
So I smiled and continued:
"And after all these weeks, during which I have so faithfully accompanied you, are you actually going to insist that I lost my bet?" asked the Dryad in a low voice.
"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones.
"I let you catch the first Ajax. I might have prevented you; I might have even caught it myself!"
"But you didn't, did you?" said the pitiless Jones.