The Butterfly Book A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Butterflies of North America

_Early Writers._--The earliest descriptions of North American butterflies are found in writings which are now almost unknown, except to the close student of science. Linnæus des...

"What hand would crush the silken-wingèd fly, The youngest of inconstant April's minions, Because it cannot climb the purest sky, Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?...

"The study of butterflies,--creatures selected as the types of airiness and frivolity,--instead of being despised, will some day be valued as one of the most important branches...

At the base of all truly scientific knowledge lies the principle of order. There have been some who have gone so far as to say that science is merely the orderly arrangement of...