- The next year, when Vladimir is eight, he finds his mother's old zoology books. From them, he learns about "serpents and butterflies and embryos." (6.2.1) He finds memoirs of butterfly hunting and other volumes of lepidoptera information. (Vocabulary lesson: "lepidoptera" is the order of insects that includes butterflies and moths; a "lepidopterist" is someone who studies them. Those folks, including Nabokov, will go by "leptists" or "leps" for short.)
- Though the summer of 1905 was bright and colorful, Nabokov remembers, and it was 1906 when he spotted that Swallowtail, his obsession with butterflies started slowly.
- When he is quite ill during 1907, he loses an early love of numbers, but the butterflies stay.
- During his illness, his mother brings him books, and he learns more about the species and names.
- By 1908, Vladimir knows most of what there was to know about all European butterflies and moths.
- Around this time, the study of lepidoptera is changing: while before the "family trees" of butterflies were only vaguely categorized, new science made it so every species and variety was organized correctly.
- Vladimir has particular affection for mimicry: when butterflies or moths have evolved to look like other things so as to avoid predators.
- Butterflies are like art in this way, Nabokov says. "Both were a form of magic, both were a game of intricate enchantment and deception." (6.2.5)