* *

[Illustration: Mourning-cloak Butterfly (3/4 life size)]

Well, this story may be not quite true, but it is partly true, and the
beautiful lady is known to-day as the Mourning-cloak Butterfly. There it
is, plain to be seen, the black mourning cloak, but peeping from under
it, you can see the golden border and some of the blue diamonds too,
if you look very carefully.

In the North Woods where I spent my young days, the first butterfly to
be seen in the springtime was the Mourning-cloak, and the reason we saw
it so early in the season, yes, even in the snowtime, was because this
is one of the Butterflies that sometimes sleep all winter, and so live
in two different seasons.

Its eggs are laid on the willows, elms, or poplars, in early springtime.
The young soon hatch, and eat so much, and grow so fast, that five weeks
after the eggs are laid, and three after they are hatched, the
caterpillar is full grown, and hangs itself up as a chrysalis under some
sheltering board or rail. In two weeks more, the wonderful event takes
place, the perfect Butterfly comes forth; and there is another
Mourning-cloak to liven the roadside, and amaze us with its half-hidden
beauty.

TALE 14

The Wandering Monarch

Did you ever read the old Greek story of Ulysses, King of Ithaca, the
Wandering Monarch, who for twenty years roamed over sea and land away
from home--always trying to get back, but doomed to keep on travelling,
homesick and weary, but still moving on; until his name became a byword
for wandering?

[Illustration: MONARCH BUTTERFLY

"The Wanderer" in Three Stages: Cocoon, Caterpillar, and Butterfly]

In our own woods and our own fields in America we have a Wandering
Monarch--the "Big Red Butterfly" as we children called it--the "Monarch"
as it is named by the butterfly catchers.

It is called the "Wanderer" chiefly because it is the only one of our
Butterflies that migrates like the birds. In the late summer it
gathers in great swarms when the bright days are waning, and flies away
to warmer lands. I have often seen it going, yet I do not remember that
I ever saw it come back in the springtime; but it comes, though not in
great flocks like those that went south.

One of the common names of this splendid creature is "Milkweed
Butterfly" because its grub or caterpillar is fond of feeding on the
leaves of the common milkweed.

The drawing shows the size and style of the grub; in colour it is yellow
or ye