“Many kinds are of a lively and even pugnacious disposition, and perch themselves upon the tip of a twig, or on a stone, or some such outlook, and dash at the first butterfly that passes, _especially if it be one of their own species_;[125] then the two advance and retreat, forwards and backwards, time and again, circle round each other with amazing celerity, all the while, perchance, mounting skywards, until suddenly they part, dash to the ground, and the now quiet pursuer again stations himself on the very spot he quitted for the fray.”[126] How does he do _that_ without accurate eyesight, with good defining power?—to which, indeed, the whole performance bears witness. Elsewhere, too, this pronounced characteristic of returning to the exact spot, left some little time ago, is dwelt upon. To me it seems a complete upsettal of the defective eyesight theory, or, since good eyesight could do no more, what does such defectiveness matter? The following description also, which Bates gives us, of butterfly-life by the Amazons, does not suggest that any of these bright-day-lovers, these children of the sun, need write an “_Apologia pro oculis suis_.” “The fine showy _Heliconii_,” he says, “often assemble in small parties, or by twos and threes, apparently to sport together or perform a kind of dance” (my “dancing in the chequered shade,” therefore, was no inapt quotation). “I believe the parties are composed chiefly of males. The sport begins generally between a single pair. They advance, retire, glide right and left in face of each other, wheel round to a considerable distance, again approach, and so on; a third joins in, then a fourth, or more. _They never touch_;[127] when too many are congregated a general flutter takes place, and they all fly off, to fall in again by pairs shortly afterwards.”[128] Lastly, Belt tells us this: “Here a large spider built strong, yellow, silken webs joined one on to the other, so as to make a complete curtain of web, in which were entangled many large butterflies, generally forest species, caught when flying across the clearing. I was at first surprised to find that the kinds that frequent open places were not caught, although they abounded on low white-flowered shrubs close to the webs; but on getting behind them and trying to frighten them within the silken curtain, their instinct taught them to avoid it, for, although startled, they threaded their way through open spaces and between the webs with the greatest ease.”[129] If a butterfly with defective eyesight can thread its way between spiders’ webs, so as never to be caught, “with the greatest ease,” “why, then, say an old man can do somewhat”—but it must be without spectacles. ----- Footnote 112: Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazon. Footnote 113: Ibid. (1864), p. 63. Footnote 114: Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, p. 29. Footnote 115: Ibid., pp. 257, 258. Footnote 116: Ibid., pp. 328, 329. Footnote 117: