Swish-h! A wild fluttering in the net, a soft cry of excitement from the Dryad, and there, dead, in the palm of the hand of Jones, lay the first perfect specimen, exquisite, flawless, beautiful beyond words.
Before the Dryad could place the lovely creature in safety another Ajax darted into the glade, sheered straight for the decoy, and the next instant was fluttering, a netted captive.
Then the excitement grew; again and again Ajax appeared in the vicinity; and the tension only increased as the forest phantom, unseeing or unheeding the decoy, darted on in a mad ecstasy of flight.
No hunter, crouched in the reeds, could find keener excitement watching near his decoys than the Dryad found that April day, motionless, almost breathless, scanning the forest depths for the misty-winged phantom of the tropic wilderness. One in six turned to the decoy; there were long, silent intervals of waiting and of strained expectancy; there were false alarms as a distant drifting dragon-fly glimmered in the sun; but one by one the swift-winged victims dashed at the decoy and were taken in their strength and pride and all their unsullied beauty. And when the sport of that April morning was over, and when Denis, the Ethiopian, turned the horses' heads homeward, Ajax Floridensis, Ajax Marcellus and Ajax Telamonides were no longer mysteries to the Dryad and to Jones.
But there was a deeper mystery to solve before returning to the vast caravansary across the river; and while they hesitated to attack it, I, mademoiselle, having met and defeated Ajax in fair and open trial of cunning and of wit, think fit to throw a ray of modern light upon this archaic tale.
It is true that Ajax, of the family of Papilio, rivals the wind in flight, and seldom, in spring and summer, deigns to alight. Yet I have seen Ajax Telamonides alight in the middle of the roadway, and, netting him, have found him fresh from the chrysalis, and therefore weak and inexperienced. Ajax Floridensis I have taken with a net as he feasted on the bunches of white sparkleberry on the edge of the jungle.
Rarely have I seen Ajax seduced by the wild phlox blossoms, but I have sometimes caught him sipping there.
As for the decoy, I have used it and taken with it scores and scores of Ajax butterflies which otherwise I could not have hoped to capture. This is not all; the great Tiger Swallowtail of the orange groves can be decoyed by a dead comrade of either sex; so, too, can the royal, velvet-robed Palamedes butterfly; and when the imperial Turnus sails high among the magnolias' topmost branches, a pebble cast into the air near him will sometimes bring him fluttering down, following the stone as it falls to the ground. These three butterflies, however, are generally easily decoyed, and all love flowers. Yet, in experimenting with decoys, I have never seen an Ajax decoy to any dead butterfly except an Ajax; and the dead butterfly may be of either sex, and as battered as you please.
It is supposed by some that butterflies can distinguish colour and form at no greater distance than five feet; and experiments in decoying appear to bear out this theory. Butterflies decoy to their own species, even to faded and imperfect ones.
Of half a dozen specimens set out on leaves and twigs, among which were Papilio Palamedes, Cresphontes, and Turnus, Ajax decoyed only to an imperfect and faded Ajax, and finally, when among that brilliant array of specimens a single upper wing of a dead Ajax was placed on a broad leaf, Ajax came to it, ignoring the other perfect specimens.