THE TRAVELS OF A BUTTERELY. 19

She sat upon a rose-bud to rest herself and look round, as she
closed her wings over her back you could hardly see her, the
green streaks and chequers on the outside of them made her
look so like a leaf or a twig; even the sharp-eyed hedge-
sparrows, on the look-out for what they could catch for their
nestlings, passed it over.

There was a bed of sting-nettles just below, where a batch
of butterflies’ eggs had been laid in the spring, and on one
nettle-top sat a butterfly which had just come out of its
chrysalis. The empty shell was hanging from the stalk still,
covered with sharp gilded points. The butterfly, which had
only broken through it an hour ago, was just thinking of taking
its first flight, and sat flapping its glorious wings to try their
strength.

Oh, how splendid they were! Bright crimson—orange,
each with a great eye like one of the eyes of a peacock’s tail
painted on it. The colours flashed in the sunshine as bright as
a rainbow; but when the butterfly shut his wings he, too, was
hardly to be found; for when they were shut the outsides of
them showed only, and they were brown and black, and made
him look like a bit of stick., It was a wonderful surprise, like
a conjuring trick, to watch him flash out all his painted show
and then make it vanish again by merely clapping his wings
together. That was the butterfly’s way of hiding himself; but
when you looked closely even the dull, cloudy-looking outer sides
of his wings were covered with a fine brocade pattern marked
out with the smallest possible touches and streaks of gold.

‘Oh, how beautiful!” thought the plain little white butter-
fly as the peacock-eyed beauty gave its first flitting dip into the
sunshiny air, shaking gleams of light from its wings, while the
other followed admiringly after it and settled on a daisy close
at hand.