, and here the
two layers were massed.

The insects alighted, facing in any direction, but veered at once,
heading upbreeze. Along the riverside of markets of tropical cities I
have seen fleets of fishing boats crowded close together, their gay
sails drying, while great ebony Neptunes brought ashore baskets of
angel fish. This came to mind as I watched my flotillas of
butterflies.

I leaned forward until my face was hardly a foot from the outliers,
and these I learned to know as individuals. One sulphur had lost a bit
of hind wing, and three times he flew away and returned to the same
spot. Like most cripples, he was unamiable, and resented a close
approach, pushing at the trespasser with a foreleg in a most
unbutterfly-like way. Although I watched closely, I did not see a
single tongue uncoiled for drinking. Only when a dense group became
uneasy and pushed one another about were the tongue springs slightly
loosened. Even the nervous antennae were quiet after the insects had
settled. They seemed to have achieved a Rhopaloceran Nirvana, content
to rest motionless until caught up in the temporary whirlwinds of
restlessness which now and then possessed them.

They came from all directions, swirling over the rocks, twisting
through nearby brambles, and settling without a moment's hesitation.
It was as though they had all been here many times before, a
rendezvous which brooked not an instant's delay. From time to time
some mass spirit troubled them, and, as one butterfly, the whole
company took to wing. Close as they were when resting, they fairly
buffeted one another in mid-air. Their wings, striking one another and
my camera and face, made a strange little rustling, crisp and
crackling whispers of sounds. As if a pile of Northern autumn leaves,
fallen to earth, suddenly remembered days of greenness and humming
bees, and strove to raise themselves again to the bare branches
overhead.

Down came the butterflies again, brushing against my clothes and eyes
and hands. All that I captured later were males, and most were fresh
and newly emerged, with a scattering of dimmed wings, frayed at edges,
who flew more slowly, with less vigor. Finally the lower patch was
washed out by the rising tide, but not until the water actually
reached them did the insects leave. I could trace with accuracy the
exact reach of the last ripple to roll over the flat sand by the
contour of the remaining outermost rank of insects.

On and on came