Nor are the Papilios all the bright-winged butterflies of the ridge. Here flies the zebra, his long, almost dragonfly-like wings rippled with black and yellow bars that seem to flow over them as he flies like dapple of sunlight on a black pool. The zebra is a lazy fellow. Compared with most other butterflies he fairly saunters along. I fancy that if one of those long-tailed skippers, or even one of the silver-spotted, that both frequent the same groves, were to find him on their mad track they would telescope him. The Papilios seem to be the butterflies of the higher air levels. You are more apt to find the zebras flying head high and the skippers still lower. Perhaps this usual difference of air strata is why those collisions do not take place. Lower still, flitting among the very herbs at your feet are other, beautiful if smaller, varieties. Out of the shadows of the foliage come most awkwardly the spangled nymphs, pleased with the sunlight, yet scared in a moment into fleeing awkwardly back again. Of these I note commonest _Neonympha phocion_, the Georgian satyr, singularly marked underneath with rough ovals of iron rust in which are blue-pupiled eyes with a yellow iris. Here, too, is _Neonympha eurytus_, as common North as South. There are many more butterflies that one may see in a day’s tramp down river in this enchanted land. This day has left with me, as one most vivid impression, the memory of a little patch of trailing blackberry vines whose white blooms are larger and more rose-like than those of Northern hillsides. Upon the patch had descended a snow squall of white butterflies till you could not tell petals from wings, or if it was flowers that took flight or butterflies that unfolded from the fragrant buds. Other spots were dear with tiny forester moths, most fairy-like of thumbnail creatures, the flutter of checkered black and white on their wings making them most noticeable. Once out of the deep shade of the thicket a painted bunting flew and lighted in full view, showing the rich blue of his iridescent head and neck, the flashing green of his back and wing coverts, the red of his under parts. I know of no other bird whose colors are at once so gaudy and so harmonious. He was like a flash of priceless jewels. No wonder he keeps these colors in the shelter of the thickets as much as possible. The hawk that catches a painted bunting must think he is about to dine on a diadem. So through all the vivid warmth of the long day flit these bright creatures of the sun, and the mysterious bloom of tropic seas blows in with the wind that sings in the palmettos. All tempt one to fare farther and farther south in search of greater enchantment. CHAPTER XX ALLIGATORS AND WILD TURKEYS