“A rubber tree twined its roots about a palmetto till it crushed the trunk to a debris of rotten wood”] find the low-growing composite blooms of the plant which produces the “Spanish needles,” seeds that are spear-like akenes to stab as you pass. The white petals of this composite flower are no whiter than the wings of the great Southern white butterfly that delights in feeding on this pretty, daisy-like blossom. As the summer comes on, myriads of Southern white butterflies make the ridge their hostelry and the road southward their highway. Already they make the road a place of snowflakes, scurrying on March winds all hither and thither. They are as white as snow in flight, the tiny marking of black on the margin of the primaries serving only to accentuate the whiteness. So when they light and fold the wings the greenish tint of the secondaries beneath is only that reflected light which becomes green in some snow shadows. They serve to make the day cool while yet the sun is fervid, and to walk toward it even at a moderate pace is to perspire freely. Just as snowflakes during a white storm scurry together in companionship and alight in groups beneath some sheltering shrub, so toward nightfall when the level sun just tops the ridge to the westward these Southern snowflakes dance together and light in drifts beneath some overhanging shrub which shelters them from the wind. There hundreds wait for the reviving warmth of the next morning’s sun. Stranger than this is the passing of what seem marshaled hosts along this Indian River road toward the south. The exceptional cold of the winter has kept the imagos in chrysalid and the rush is not yet on. But the time will come soon when each day uncountable millions will pass. Whether this is continued westward into the interior of the State I cannot say, nor do I know whence they come nor whither they go. Perhaps some West Coast observer will be able to state whether this flight goes to the south there or whether the vast numbers round the southern end of the peninsula and go north again. Last November this same southern movement was noticeable in the northern portion of the State, about Jacksonville. In its aggregate it must reach a number of butterflies which might well stagger the imagination. Butterflies fly easiest against a gentle breeze. One attacked will go off down the wind at express train speed, but as soon as his fright is over you will find him beating to windward again. They hunt, both for food and for mates, by scent. Therefore against the wind is their only logical course. The trade winds blow gently all summer long, and most of the time during the winter, from the southeast. Hence the butterflies beating against it come to the coast line and follow it down, swarming the Indian River road with their [Illustration: “The river is screened from your view by dense growth of palmettos”]