在吳明益的創作中，鱗翅目昆蟲扮演了什麼角色呢？蝴蝶不僅是吳氏散文創作集《迷蝶誌》與《蝶道》的焦點，也是小說《複眼人》與《單車失竊記》中突出的母題。本文主張，吳明益的蝴蝶母題表達出一種生態視界，是以複合感知的再現為基礎，故而必須超越對單一個體的關注，整合複數生物的「觀」點，方能實現。本文比較吳氏與其他蝴蝶書寫者的作品，包含莊子、納博科夫，以及二十世紀早期中國的「鴛鴦蝴蝶派」，揭示各家在此共通母題下如何發展相應的元素，其間又有何異同。筆者進一步提出，吳明益的「蝴蝶效應」跨越了蝴蝶的母題本身，尤其可見於他強調仔細觀察與精確再現的面向。吳明益保存、檢查並再現腳踏車物件的審慎程度，絲毫不輸他對待蝴蝶標本的方式。蝴蝶與鐵馬都乘載並傳遞多層次的意義。藉由二者，我們或許能容許自己的心靈漫遊，自由而舒適地，「翼覆翼」展翅高飛，超越我們個人的自我。

What are Lepidoptera doing in the creative works of Wu Ming-Yi (b. 1971)? Butterflies are the focus of Wu’s photo-illustrated essay collections The Book of Lost Butterflies and The Tao of Butterflies, and are prominent motifs in his novels The Man with the Compound Eyes and The Stolen Bicycle. This essay argues Wu’s butterfly motifs express an ecological vision grounded in representations of “compound” perception, a vision attainable only through an integrated view of multiple organisms that transcends a focus on the individual. Comparing Wu’s works to butterfly writers such as Zhuangzi, Vladimir Nabokov, and the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School of early twentieth-century China reveals both commonalities and distinctions in how each developed the valences of their shared motif. Wu’s “butterfly effects,” I propose, extend beyond butterflies themselves, not least in his emphasis on precision in observation and representation. Wu conserves, examines, and represents bicycle specimens with the same care he treats butterflies: both are conveyances of meaning that are multilayered, and with which we might allow our minds to go wandering, free and easy, and take flight, “wing above wing,” beyond our individual selv es.