"I think we might christen them," he said. "Let us call them Lepidoptera Sarakoffii." He tapped the glass again and watched the insects move. "But they are very remarkable," he continued. "Do they appear healthy to you?" "Perfectly." "You agree, then, that they are in good condition?" "They seem to be in excellent condition." "No signs of decay--or disease?" "None." He nodded. "And yet," he said thoughtfully, "they should be, according to natural law, a mass of decayed tissue." "Ah!" I looked at him with dawning comprehension. "You mean----?" "I mean that they should have died long ago." "How long do they live normally?" "About twenty to thirty hours. At the outside their life is not more than thirty-six hours. These are somewhat older." I gazed at the little creatures crawling aimlessly about. _Aimless_, did I say? There they were, filling up the floor of the glass case, moving with difficulty, getting in each other's way, sprawling and colliding, apparently without aim or purpose. At that spectacle my thoughts might well have taken a leap into the future and seen, instead of a crowded mass of butterflies, a crowded mass of humanity. I asked Sarakoff a question. "How old are they?" I expected to hear they had existed perhaps a day or two beyond their normal limit. "They are almost exactly a year old," was the reply. I stared, marvelling. A year old! I bent down, gazing at the turbulent restless mass of gaudy colour. A year old--and still vital and healthy! "You mean these insects have lived a whole year?" I exclaimed, still unconvinced. He nodded. "But that is a miracle!" "It is, proportionately, equal to a man living twenty-five thousand years instead of the normal seventy." "You don't suggest----?" He replaced the muslin covering and took out his pipe and tobacco pouch. Absurd, outrageous ideas crowded to my mind. Was it, then, possible that our dream was to become reality? "I don't suppose they'll live much longer," I stammered. He was silent until he had lit his pipe. "If you met a man who had lived twenty-five thousand years, would you be inclined to tell me he would not live much longer, simply on general considerations?" I could not find a satisfactory answer.