New-York tribune., 1900-11-10
SLEEPY BUTTERFLIES.
THEY GO TO BED EARLY AND GET UP LATE

THEY co TO BED EARLY AND GET UP LATE
From The London Spectator.
Fond as the butterflies are Of the light and
sun, they dearly love their beds. Like most
fashionable people who do nothing. they stay
there very late. But their unwfllingness 70 get
up IN the morning is equalled by their eager
desire to leave the world and its pleasures early
and be asleep in good time. They are the ear
liest of all our creatures to seek repose. An
August day has about fifteen hours OF light.
and OF that time the sun shines for twelve
hours at least: but the butterflies weary OF sun
and flowers, color and light early that by
O'clock even warm days. many OF them
have retired for the night. on the chalk hills
live many of the exquisite blue butterflies. whose
motto. like that Of the reds is early to bed
Sometimes they may be found. long before sun
set sleeping in hundreds on the downs. Then
may be seen the kind OF bed a butterfly OF this
fragile yet hardy race chooses, and the attitudes
it sleeps in its efforts to be comfortable. and
eaten by the tigers and lions OF the butterfly
world. Last week. in the cold windy days. they
were all falling asleep at D o'clock. Their dor
nritory was in the tall. cOlorlesS grass. with
dead seed heads, that fringes the tracks over
the hills. the leaves that cross the hollows-
Common blues in hundreds were there, and
small heath butterflies almost as many. The
former each and every one or tnem arrange
themselves to look like part OF the seed spike
that caps the grass stem Then the use and pur-
pose of the parti-colOred gray and yelloY under
coloring Of their wings is seen The butterfly In
variabIy goes to sleep head downward. its eyes
looking straight down the stem OF the grass.
II folds and contracts its wings to the utmost.
But the effect Is to reduce its size and shape
to a narrow ridge. making an acute angle with
the grass stem. hardly distinsushable in shape
and color from the seed heads on thousands OF
other stems around The butterfly also sleeps
on the top of the which increases Its like
ness to the natural final OF the grass. In the
morning when the sunbeams warm them all
these gray pied Sleepers the grass tops open
their wings, and the colorless bennets are
starred with a thousand living flowers OF purest
azure
What We may call the garden butterflies"
especially the red admirals often do seek a
roof going into barns. sheds, churches, veran-
das and even houses to sleep. There. too, they
often wake up in winter from their Ions hiber-
mating sleep. and remind OF summer days
some by they flicker the sun warmed
panes Mrs. Brightwen established the fact
that they sometimes have fixed homes to which
they return Two butterflies. one birthstone
the other, so far as the writer remembers red
admiral regularly for admission TO the
house. One killed by rainstornn when
the window was shut; the other hibernated In
the house. Probably IL a sleeping place
and bedroom that the butterflies made II their
home" There Is parallel instance mentioned
we believe. by Mr.. Wallace, when a butterfly
came night after night to sleep on a particular
spot In the roof of veranda in the Eastern
Archipelago in the East the sun itself Is 50
regular and 80 rapid in rising and setting that
the sleeping hours OF insects and birds are far
more regular than in temperate lands with their
shifting periods OF light and darkness.