A BUTTERFLY MIGRATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7251, 9 August 1907, Page 1

A BUTTERFLY MIGRATION.

In a breath appeared a horde of butter Hies coming from the north straight across a wide pasture, settling in the circle of trees, adding a sumptuous touch to the green and gold—for the time was mid-September, and elms and maples were flaring torches. I had only been three days in Kansas, and, lo! a migration of butterflies. To witness a migration of this Milkweed Butterfly is, Ulearn, a rare privilege, for it is our only species in 'America that does migrate, and honoured were we in its royal progress, bound for the Carolines or the Gulr States. A rollicking, happy-go-lucky sort of crowd they seemed. An amazing and interesting spectacle we found these frail, airy voyagers on that sunny afternoon when, by four of the clock (that strikes all the time unless its i;-jng is tenderly wrapped'in cotton batting)'', they drift to us in hundreds, like autumn leaves leased from their 'moorings afloat on summer winds. As swallows soaring, curving, dropping into the chimney depths at twilight, thus the butterflies rose and fell, rose and circled higher—higher, up to the very tree-tops; then came tumbling back among the leaves, settling and unsettling themselves fussily, airily, noiselessly, as though a mere contact with a branch made them recoil; if not jusb the right place— up and away, slowly and with dignity; their selection was daintily made. On the twigs they strung themselves like bends, one upon another; oiy-rath-er, the comparison,might well be made they hung m bunches as droops the yellow laburnum, the purple wistaria, the tragrant locust blossom. Precisely like that .they hung, bearing down by their weight all around the tree •+ -.^/.["PSe-of the spruce, freighting it with Christmas gifts before the time ot mutage.—Jennie Brookes, in Harpers. '