sunning themselves and of attracting their fellows than of
attention to business. And the reason is obvious, if one considers for
a moment the difference in the political and domestic economy of the
two opposed groups. For the honey-bees are neuters, sexless purveyors
of the hive, with no interest on earth save the storing of honey for
the common benefit of the phalanstery to which they belong. But the
butterflies are full-fledged males and females, on the hunt through the
world for suitable partners: they think far less of feeding than of
displaying their charms: a little honey to support them during their
flight is all they need:--'For the bee, a long round of ceaseless toil;
for me,' says the gay butterfly, 'a short life and a merry one.' Mr.
Harold Skimpole needed only 'music, sunshine, a few grapes.' The
butterflies are of his kind. The high mountain zone is for them a true
ball-room: the flowers are light refreshments laid out in the
vestibule. Their real business in life is not to gorge and lay by, but
to coquette and display themselves and find fitting partners.

So while the bees with their honey-bags, like the financier with his
money-bags, are storing up profit for the composite community, the
butterfly, on the contrary, lays himself out for an agreeable flutter,
and sips nectar where he will, over large areas of country. He flies
rather high, flaunting his wings in the sun, because he wants to show
himself off in all his airy beauty: and when he spies a bed of bright
flowers afar off on the sun-smitten slopes, he sails off towards them
lazily, like a grand signior who amuses himself. No regular plodding
through a monotonous spike of plain little bells for him: what he wants
is brilliant colour, bold advertisement, good honey, and plenty of it.
He doesn't care to search. Who wants his favours must make himself
conspicuous.

Now, plants are good shopkeepers; they lay themselves out strictly to
attract their customers. Hence the character of the flowers on this
beeless belt of mountain side is entirely determined by the character
of the butterfly fertilisers. Only those plants which laid themselves
out from time immemorial to suit the butterflies, in other words, have
succeeded in the long run in the struggle for existence. So the
butterfly-plants of the butterfly-zone are all strictly adapted to
butterfly tastes and butterfly fancies. They are, for the most part,
individually large and brilliantly coloured: