[Illustration: BUNNY RABBIT WATCHED HIM OUT OF SIGHT] A BUTTERFLY PAINT-BOX (MAY) [Illustration] I wonder how many of my young readers know why these dainty flying creatures are called "Butterflies"? We all know what butter is, and we know, too, that there are quite a number of English words which begin with "butter." It is not a pretty beginning, is it? But there it is. Let us think of a few--_butter_-fly, _butter_-cup, _butter_-wort, _butter_-fingers, _butter_-scotch--why, one can think of half a dozen straight away. Now this shows us clearly that "butter" is a very old word, and that the people of long ago (who were much less clever than we are, perhaps) must have used it quite naturally when they wanted to describe anything which was squashy, or pasty, or greasy, or slippery, or yellow. Look at the picture at the top of the next page. I wish I could have given it to you in its proper colours. It looks much nicer like that. Look at it carefully. No other English butterfly has the same pretty curves to its wings, and some of you, I dare say, will know what it is by its shape. But I must tell those who do not know. It is a Brimstone Butterfly, and its colour is bright, bright yellow with an orange spot in the middle of each wing (you can only see one wing in the picture, the other three are hidden behind it; one way to tell a butterfly from a moth is to remember that butterflies' wings close standing up, but nearly all moths' wings close down flat). [Illustration: THE BRIMSTONE BUTTERFLY After whom all "Butterflies" are probably called] It is almost certain that this insect was the first insect to be called "Butter"-fly because of its butter colour. When people began to see that there were other pretty flying things of much the same shape, though of quite different colours, they called them all Butterflies after this first one. [Illustration: THE RED ADMIRAL A Butterfly of many beautiful colours] So we speak, nowadays, without ever thinking of how funny it really is, of blue butterflies and white butterflies and black butterflies and purple butterflies, and red and yellow and green butterflies--all the colours of the rainbow, in fact. [Illustration: THE PURPLE EMPEROR The most gorgeous Butterfly in England, though not by any means the most beautiful] We would hardly talk of black butter or purple butter, would we? Some of you will perhaps wonder why the Brimstone Butterfly was the first to be noticed when there are so many others which are just as common. I think I can tell you.