Not that it Matters | Page 6

at least, we never told ourselves that butterflies
liked being pursued, as (I understand) foxes like being hunted. We were
moderately honest about it. And we comforted ourselves in the end
with the assurance of many eminent naturalists that "insects don't feel
pain."
I have often wondered how naturalists dare to speak with such authority.

Do they never have dreams at night of an after-life in some other world,
wherein they are pursued by giant insects eager to increase their
"naturalist collection"--insects who assure each other carelessly that
"naturalists don't feel pain"? Perhaps they do so dream. But we, at any
rate, slept well, for we had never dogmatized about a butterfly's
feelings. We only quoted the wise men.
But if there might be doubt about the sensitiveness of a butterfly, there
could be no doubt about his distinguishing marks. It was amazing to us
how many grown-up and (presumably) educated men and women did
not know that a butterfly had knobs on the end of his antennae, and that
the moth had none. Where had they been all these years to be so
ignorant? Well-meaning but misguided aunts, with mysterious
promises of a new butterfly for our collection, would produce some
common Yellow Underwing from an envelope, innocent (for which
they may be forgiven) that only a personal capture had any value to us,
but unforgivably ignorant that a Yellow Underwing was a moth. We
did not collect moths; there were too many of them. And moths are
nocturnal creatures. A hunter whose bed-time depends upon the whim
of another is handicapped for the night-chase.
But butterflies come out when the sun comes out, which is just when
little boys should be out; and there are not too many butterflies in
England. I knew them all by name once, and could have recognized any
that I saw--yes, even Hampstead's Albion Eye (or was it Albion's
Hampstead Eye?), of which only one specimen had ever been caught in
this country; presumably by Hampstead--or Albion. In my day-dreams
the second specimen was caught by me. Yet he was an
insignificant-looking fellow, and perhaps I should have been better
pleased with a Camberwell Beauty, a Purple Emperor, or a Swallowtail.
Unhappily the Purple Emperor (so the book told us) haunted the tops of
trees, which was to take an unfair advantage of a boy small for his age,
and the Swallowtail haunted Norfolk, which was equally inconsiderate
of a family which kept holiday in the south. The Camberwell Beauty
sounded more hopeful, but I suppose the trams disheartened him. I
doubt if he ever haunted Camberwell in my time.
With threepence a week one has to be careful. It was necessary to buy
killing-boxes and setting-boards, but butterfly-nets could be made at
home. A stick, a piece of copper wire, and some muslin were all that

were necessary. One liked the muslin to be green, for there was a
feeling that this deceived the butterfly in some way; he thought that
Birnam Wood was merely coming to Dunsinane when he saw it
approaching, arid that the queer- looking thing behind was some local
efflorescence. So he resumed his dalliance with the herbaceous border,
and was never more surprised in his life than when it turned out to be a
boy and a butterfly-net. Green muslin, then, but a plain piece of cane
for the stick. None of your collapsible fishing-rods--"suitable for a
Purple Emperor." Leave those to the millionaire's sons.
It comes back to me now that I am doing this afternoon what I did more
than twenty-five years ago; I am writing an article upon the way to
make a butterfly-net. For my first contribution to the press was upon
this subject. I sent it to the editor of some boys' paper, and his failure to
print it puzzled me a good deal, since every word in it (I was sure) was
correctly spelt. Of course, I see now that you want more in an article
than that. But besides being puzzled I was extremely disappointed, for I
wanted badly the money that it should have brought in. I wanted it in
order to buy a butterfly-net; the stick and the copper wire and the green
muslin being (in my hands, at any rate) more suited to an article.

Superstition

I have just read a serious column on the prospects for next year. This
article consisted of contributions from experts in the various branches
of industry (including one from a meteorological expert who, I need
hardly tell you, forecasted a wet summer) and ended with a general
summing up of the year by Old Moore or one of the minor prophets.
Old Moore, I am sorry to say, left me cold.
I should like to believe in astrology, but I cannot.