An Eastern Comma There are more ways than Solomon's four
which baffle our human intelligence. The way of a butterfly is perhaps less predictable than that of an eagle : and this year our entomologists have been kept wondering all the summer not only at the odd, and it seems meaningless, migrations across the seas, but—not less—at the unexpected appearances and disappearances. The really satisfactory butterfly is the Comma. It is both queer in shape, as its excellent name implies, and beautiful in colour. It was rare and narrowly local, the perquisite of the Three Graces—the shires of Here- ford, Gloucester and Worcester. It is now common and widely distributed. I saw the first I had ever seen so far east, on September 12th. It settled in front of our feet on a common in Hertfordshire, six miles north of St. Albans, and appeared to be freshly hatched. It was at any rate in fresh and perfect plumage, so to say. It was first seen by my companion who learnt his butterflies as a boy in the pursuit of swallow-tails on Wicken Fen. This experience was also new to him. Has 'anyone so much as a theory why this butterfly was rare for generationa and so multiplied, and spread itself within -a few years ? The Comma is also a note of interrogation.
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