The little butterflies, which love the dusky woods, are brown, drab, and gray, with black or reddish spots, and dull, yellow marks. Their coats are like the colors of the tree trunks, the mosses, and dead leaves, where they live. Then when the daisies and lilies are wide out, with the white roses and bright-hued summer flowers, come the white butterflies. With them follow the splendid swallow-tail family, to swing around the tulips and gladiolas, and petunias, yellow lilies, and geraniums. In the autumn, among the marigolds, dahlias, and asters, all our gayest-coated butterflies come out,--orange, gold, brown, scarlet, purple,--eyed like peacocks’ tails. You must not think from this, that you will see _only_ such and such colored butterflies, at certain times of year. You may see swallow-tails very early in spring. They have lived over winter.[23] You may see in autumn the second brood of spring butterflies. You may find the autumn butterflies sailing about in the summer. They have lived over winter as caterpillars. A little lad said to me, one day, when he saw a very gay peacock butterfly, “I think Nature got tired of painting, and emptied her whole paint-box on that fellow!” Indeed, it does seem as if there is no gay tint of earth, or sky, or sea, no hue of flower, or rainbow, which the butterfly does not wear. They come to us in red, purple, green, blue, white, black. They take all shades of these colors. Then the colors are put on in lines, dots, streaks, bars, spots, fringes. They are made more beautiful by the waved line of the lower wings, by the velvet body, the slender legs, the graceful feelers, the bright, jewel-like eyes. No silk dyer can bring out a new shade, but some butterfly has worn it for his every-day clothes, since the creation. No king can buy any richer colors, or more finely put together, than our butterfly wears. And all else about him sets off the splendor of Joseph’s coat. FOOTNOTES: [23] North of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the swallow-tails never live over winter. LESSON XXVI. COUSIN MOTH. [Illustration: A LOWLY LIFE.] In the great order of the scale-wings, the butterfly is of the family of the “club-horns.” His cousin, the moth, is of the family of the “varied-horns.” The feelers of the butterfly, up to the club, are straight and smooth. The feelers of the moth are curved and often fringed. If you put them under a strong microscope, you might think you were looking at lovely ferns. Do you remember what you read in the first and second book of Nature Readers, of the hook-wing family? Almost all moths have a hook and catch to fasten the lower wing to the upper one in flight. No butterfly has such a hook. I shall now tell you about cousin moth. He is the night flyer, with the big, thick body, the furry coat, the fancy feelers, the hook for his wings. He is the flyer that rests with his wings laid open and flat, or laid close down along the sides of his body, like a cloak.