Self-Propelled Flowers

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
~John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Butterflies, from modern to four hundred years old:

Mardi Gras Butterflies
by Mills Baker

Scent of Spring
HK Admiralty Tamar Park, Hong Kong

Participants in the Bernese Carnival

Okayama flag of the crest of the Ikeda clan
Himeji Castle Festival

Vase, Lemmer (Steenstra), 1st quarter 20th century
Harlinger Pottery Museum

"The Flapper," Life Magazine, 1922
by F. A. Leyendecker

A La Parisienne
Hiver magazine 1913-1914; Page 45

A pair of pearlware vases designed by Courtney Lindsay at Wedgwood, 1900-1901
Photo by Sean Pathasema/Birmingham Museum of Art

Princess Nobody: a tale of fairy land, by Andrew Lang, back cover, circa 1884
illustrated by Richard Doyle
University of Florida Digital Collections

Cartoon of a butterfly catching a human, 1881
from Butterflies; their structure, changes and life-histories, with special reference to American forms.
by Samuel Hubbard Scudder (1837-1911)

Vlinder en blauwe vlieg, circa 1680
by Rochus van Veen
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Links:

* The Holocaust Museum of Houston's butterfly project (Why butterflies? It's from a poem. As a child/teen, I liked to read plays and one of my favorites was also inspired by that poem.)
* Monarch butterfly migration and how to make food for traveling monarchs
* How to fold an easy origami butterfly
* Tons more origami butterflies
* Free butterfly pattern stitching card

The title comes from Robert A. Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: “Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.”