LEPIDOPTERA OF NORTH AMERICA. 279 



the picture of happy labour it presents. It would be hard 

 to find an equal in beauty to the zone of vegetation that 

 surrounds them, or a more enlivening scene of labour. By 

 the side of the lofty cone of the magnolia, displaying her snowy 

 blossoms to the breezes which waft their fragrance afar, shoots 

 up the tall stem of the palmetto, crowned with its vast fan- 

 like fronds ; the dark foliage of the cypress and pine are in- 

 termixed with the delicate green of the water-oak, or the 

 liquidambar ; the live oak spreads forth its crooked arms, all 

 hung with long grey tresses of Tillandsia, over the thickets 

 of BumelicB, Hopea, Lauri, Andromedce, Vaccinia, with 

 snow-white blossoms ; Myrica, Olea, Glycine, and countless 

 other shrubs, interwoven with scarlet-flowered honeysuckles, 

 grape-vines with fragrant flowers, and the two Bignonice, 

 their flexible branches ascending the tallest oaks, and hang- 

 ing with flowery wreaths their rugged arms. From this mass 

 of foliage and flowers the mocking bird pours forth his ever- 

 varied lay ; the scarlet grosbeak, his humbler but melodious 

 notes ; and the little ground-doves complain in mournful tones. 

 High above soar the vultures, mere moving dark spots on the 

 deep blue sky, and bright as silver glistens the white head 

 of the bald eagle, as he wheels in wide circles keeping watch 

 over the fish -hawk, seated on the dead branch of a pine. 

 Here a sturgeon leaps, or a porpoise blows, there an alligator 

 floats like a log on the surface of the water, or basks ex- 

 tended in the sun. Swift from some little cove darts forth a 

 light boat, manned by some half-dozen negroes, with faces 

 looking happy as a schoolboy's on a holiday ; their oars keep 

 time to their songs in praise of their boat and their master. 

 From behind the bushes burst forth the sound of loud laugh- 

 ter, or gay voices, perhaps, echoing back the chorus of the 

 sable crew of the boat. An opening through the leafy screen 

 at the bottom of the cove whence the boat came, discloses 

 the interior of the island, showing wide-spread cotton fields, 

 the mansions of the planters, the little towns of negro- 

 houses, half buried in trees, and the cheerful gangs of la- 

 bourers (must I say slaves ?) whose merry voices have been 

 heard before. At the boat-landing, groups of little negro- 

 children, perhaps, too, there are many white children mingled 

 with them, are playing on the sands, or angling in the clear 

 wave, and here and there an old superannuated negro is en- 

 joying the sunshine, or aiding the young ones in their sport. 

 The scene is one of beauty, life, and happiness. Such are 

 the shores of Georgia. From Savannah we proceeded to 

 Augusta, thence to the Warm Springs in North Carolina, and 

 so northward and eastward to New York. After spending a 



