This butterfly I had never seen, and though for two or three days she and her bewitching sisters seemed to swarm I have not yet disentangled my soul from her fascinations. No one of the dancing sisterhood passes me but I pursue with the net for the joy of looking closely at so beautiful a creature, though I handle with tenderness and release after gloating. The lovely, fulvous orange which marks the fritillaries seems in Dione to be just a shade richer, but toward the bases of the wings it blushes into a rich wine red, a pellucid crimson, while beneath, the after-wings are as studded with glittering silver spots as a Nautch girl with silver bangles. I do not wonder that Dione soars demurely for only a moment, then seems to have to dance in pure abandonment of joy in her own dainty, beautiful completeness. I have said the cloudless sulphur is the loveliest of Southern butterflies, and in spite of temptation I cling to the statement, but Dione vanillae is the most bewitching.
Of the other varieties of demure, delightful, sedate, serene, fascinating or frivolous butterflies that passed within reach of my net as I simply stood and watched them that most wonderful day I might name a dozen. The numbers, of all varieties, were countless, and all were moving south. I do not think it a conscious migration. Yet it has all the effect of that. A butterfly, like a migrating bird, flies best against a gentle wind. It is time now for the first of the wild geese to be on their way down from the Arctic, flying and feeding across the Northern States. You will find them feeding or resting when the wind is out of the north. When it blows in the higher atmosphere from the south the long harrows breast it with ease, high up, and seem to make their way as rapidly and as far as possible while it lasts.
On days when the wind blows from the north down here there is a bit of the northern chill in the air. No more than enough to give a needed stimulus to a Northern man, to make him wish to tramp far and see all things, but to the Southern sun-born butterfly this chill spells no thoroughfare. All traffic is suspended on such days, and though in sunny sheltered corners you may find many or all varieties, only such vigorous fellows as the monarchs fly high or far. In other words, on sunny days with a southern wind there is a steady southward migration of all strong-winged butterflies, a movement that sends literally thousands upon thousands in the course of a day across miles of country. This is not conscious or purposeful migration as is the movement of the birds at this time of year, but the aggregate result is much the same. Nor is the rate of passage of individuals at all slow. I find when I sweep at one of these southbound fellows with the net and then, missing him, attempt to follow his flight, I migrate southward at a jog trot that would mean five or six miles an hour. The butterflies that started out earliest on that sunny November morning were a dozen miles nearer the head-waters of the St. Johns when the chill of late afternoon overtook them.
I have named the, to me, loveliest and most fascinating of these November migrants. So far I have found two others most interesting. One of these is Anosia berenice, which, according to my reading of butterfly authorities, has no business here at all. Berenice, surnamed the queen, is of the same genus as the monarch, the only other species of the genus found in the United States. The color is a livid brown, not differing much from that of the monarch to the casual glance. The white spots on the wings are similarly placed but the black veining is absent on the upper sides.
I had supposed the queen was found only in the southwest, in Arizona and New Mexico, and was greatly delighted to find many specimens floating about, feeding on the same blossoms as the monarch, and in many ways seeming worthy to be a consort. Like Anosia plexippus Anosia berenice has some quality which makes insect-eating birds shun it. In the southwest Basilarchia hulsti mimics the queen as the viceroy mimics the monarch. The two mimics are quite similar in appearance, and I shall look with care at each viceroy which passes in hopes of finding him the imitator of the queen.
The other most interesting variety is the zebra. In shape this insect differs from all the other butterflies found here, or indeed in the eastern United States. His wings are long and narrow, giving him somewhat the appearance of a gaudily painted dragon fly. But his flight is serene and seemingly slow. It was two days after his disappearance before I saw him again, and then I did not recognize him. The richly contrasting black and gold of his upper side I did not then see, for he floated above me. I only knew that here was a peculiarly shaped brown fellow going easily by. This time he was easily captured. Not till I had him in the net did I see his upper side and recognize my escaped convict.
CHAPTER III
ALONG THE RIVER MARGIN
One of the sweetest of Southern trees at this time of the year is the loquat, which is not by right of birth a Southern tree at all, being transplanted from Japan. However the loquats have been here long enough to be naturalized and seem Southern with that extra fillip of fervor which marks, often, the adopted citizen. Their odor was the first to greet me on landing at the long dock at Orange Park, floating on the amorous air with sure suggestion of paradise just beyond. At the time I thought it just the “spicy tropic smell” that always comes off shore to greet one in low latitudes, whether on the road to Mandalay or Trinidad or Honolulu. Usually it is born of Southern pines whose resinous distillation bears on its rough shoulders breath of jasmine, tuberose or such other climber or bulb bearer as happens to be in bloom.
Off shore in the West Indies the froth of the brine seems to play ball with these odors, tossing them on the trade winds leagues to leeward, till one wonders if Columbus might not have hunted the new world by scent. Later in the year, say February or March, this perfume might well be compounded of orange blossoms, but just now, when the oranges, hereabouts at least, are waiting for the winter frosts to be over before they bloom, it is the loquat trees which take up the burden of scent. The loquat is a handsome tree, suggesting in its shape and dark green leaves the horse-chestnut. The blooms are in corymbs, and their cotton-downy, yellowish-white flowers are not so very different to the casual glance from those of the buckeye. With one of those fairy-like surprises that the South constantly gives you the tree however does not produce horse-chestnuts, but an edible, yellow, plum-like fruit, whence its other, common name of Japanese plum.
All night the loquat blooms send their rich perfume questing off shore along the banks of the St. Johns, and the big yellow stars swing so low that it is hard to tell which is the heavenly illumination and which the trawl marks of the fishermen, lanterns hung from poles where the trawls lie in wait for channel cats. In the gray of sudden dawn you find these fishermen rowing home again, black silhouettes against a black river, and I often wonder if the scent of the loquats, slipping riverward in the lee of the long dock does not unconsciously guide them, they find port so surely without beacon.