form almost his highest pasture-grounds; but the butterflies—­insect vagrants that they are—­have no fixed home, and they therefore stray far above the level at which bee-blossoms altogether cease to grow.  Now, the butterfly differs greatly from the bee in his mode of honey-hunting:  he does not bustle about in a business-like manner from one buttercup or dead-nettle to its nearest fellow; but he flits joyously, like a sauntering straggler that he is, from a great patch of color here to another great patch at a distance, whose gleam happens to strike his roving eye by its size and brilliancy.  Hence, as that indefatigable observer, Dr. Hermann Mueller, has noticed, all Alpine or hill-top flowers have very large and conspicuous blossoms, generally grouped together in big clusters so as to catch a passing glance of the butterfly’s eye.  As soon as the insect spies such a cluster, the color seems to act as a stimulant to his broad wings, just as the candle-light does to those of his cousin the moth.  Off he sails at once, as if by automatic action, towards the distant patch, and there both robs the plant of its honey, and at the same time carries to it on his legs and head fertilizing pollen from the last of its congeners which he favored with a call.  For of course both bees and butterflies stick on the whole to a single species at a time; or else the flowers would only get uselessly hybridized, instead of being impregnated with pollen from other plants of their own kind.  For this purpose it is that most plants lay themselves out to secure the attention of only two or three varieties among their insect allies, while they make their nectaries either too deep or too shallow for the convenience of all other kinds.

Insects, however, differ much from one another in their aesthetic tastes, and flowers are adapted accordingly to the varying fancies of the different kinds.  Here, for example, is a spray of common white galium, which attracts and is fertilized by small flies, who generally frequent white blossoms.  But here again, not far off, I find a luxuriant mass of the yellow species, known by the quaint name of “lady’s-bedstraw,”—­a legacy from the old legend which represents it as having formed Our Lady’s bed in the manger at Bethlehem.  Now why has this kind of galium yellow flowers, while its near kinsman yonder has them snowy white?  The reason is that lady’s-bedstraw is fertilized by small beetles; and beetles are known to be one among the most color-loving races of insects.  You may often find one of their number, the lovely bronze and golden-mailed rose-chafer, buried deeply in the very centre of a red garden rose, and reeling about when touched as if drunk with pollen and honey.  Almost all the flowers which beetles frequent are consequently brightly decked in scarlet or yellow.  On the other hand, the whole family of the umbellates, those tall plants with level bunches of tiny blossoms, like the fool’s-parsley, have all but universally