During the whole evening not one of them moved.  Next day they were still there.  The intoxication of the light had made them forget the intoxication of love.

With creatures so madly in love with the light precise and prolonged experimentation is impracticable the moment the observer requires artificial light.  I renounced the Great Peacock and its nocturnal habits.  I required a butterfly with different habits; equally notable as a lover, but seeking out the beloved by day.

Before going on to speak of my experiments with a subject fulfilling these conditions, let me break the chronological order of my record in order to say a few words concerning another insect, which appeared after I had completed these inquiries.  I refer to the Lesser Peacock (Attacus pavonia minor, Lin.).

Some one brought me, from what locality I do not know, a superb cocoon enveloped in an ample wrapping of white silk.  From this covering, which lay in large irregular folds, the chrysalis was easily detached; in shape like that of the Great Peacock, but considerably less in size.  The anterior extremity, which is defended by an arrangement of fine twigs, converging, and free at the converging ends, forming a device not unlike an eel-pot, which presents access to the chrysalis while allowing the butterfly to emerge without breaking the defence, indicated a relative of the great nocturnal butterfly; the silk-work denoted a spinning caterpillar.

Towards the end of March this curious cocoon yielded up a female of the Lesser Peacock, which was immediately sequestered under a wire-gauze cover in my study.  I opened the window to allow news of the event to reach the surrounding country, and left it open so that such visitors as presented themselves should find free access to the cage.  The captive clung to the wire gauze and did not move for a week.

She was a superb creature, this prisoner of mine, with her suit of brown velvet, crossed by undulating lines.  The neck was surrounded by white fur; there was a carmine spot at the extremity of the upper wings, and four great eyes in which were grouped, in concentric crescents, black, white, red, and yellow ochre:  almost the colouring of the Great Peacock, but more vivid.  Three or four times in my life I had encountered this butterfly, so remarkable for its size and its costume.  The cocoon I had recently seen for the first time; the male I had never seen.  I only knew that, according to the books, it was half the size of the female, and less vividly coloured, with orange-yellow on the lower wings.

Would he appear, the elegant unknown, with waving plumes; the butterfly I had never yet seen, so rare does the Lesser Peacock seem to be in our country?  Would he, in some distant hedge, receive warning of the bride who waited on my study table?  I dared to hope it, and I was right.  He arrived even sooner than I had hoped.

Noon struck as we were sitting down to table, when little Paul, delayed by his absorption in the expected event, suddenly ran to rejoin us, his cheeks glowing.  Between his fingers we saw the fluttering wings of a handsome butterfly, caught but a moment before, while it was hovering in front of my study.  He showed it me, questioning me with his eyes.