TANGLE-LEAF PAPERS. 59 



than I have for this paper. In tropical and 

 semi-tropical countries a curious resemblance 

 in color and shape exists between the butter- 

 flies and the flowers they haunt, a resemblance 

 quite noticeable as far north as the fortieth 

 degree of latitude. 



III. 



How would " Tricycles and Triolets" do for 

 an alliterative heading to a light chapter on 

 out-door poetry ? Ever since I began to taste 

 Virgil in my school-days I have had a special 

 liking for verse smacking of the woods and 

 fields, the birds, the sunshine, and the brooks. 

 A certain passage in the ^Eneid comes into my 

 mind now, a strong sketch of a grove of trees, 

 with the light playing through the swaying 

 foliage with that strangely brilliant effect so 

 often observed on bright days in spring and 

 summer : 



"Turn silvis scena coruscis 

 Desuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra." 



I do not think that William Morris has quite 

 done justice to this beautiful Virgilian bit of 

 landscape in his rhymed translation. Here is 

 his rendering : 



" Lo ! the flickering wood above 

 And wavering shadow cast adown by darksome hang- 

 ing grove." 



" Flickering wood " is not of subtle signifi- 

 cance enough to suggest what is somehow con- 

 veyed by the original phrase. I have seen the 

 sunlight and a breeze playing at once through 

 the bright-green top of a tall tree when the 

 sudden thrills, so to speak, of golden fire, leap- 



