FOOTING IT ACROSS THE CAPE 87 



the buds, eager to be out. In hollows the spring 

 had come. On ridges it delayed, finding the aug- 

 uries unfavorable and waiting a new voice from 

 the altar. But wherever the sun shone in and 

 the wind was stayed it had loosed the butterflies 

 that soared or flitted or flipped about in joy of 

 long awaited warmth. Broad wings of gold- 

 margined, brown Vanessa antiopa soared se- 

 renely along under overarching white oaks. 

 "Little Miss Lavender" folded her gray-blue 

 wings in demure beauty on the gray cladium- 

 mossed stumps by the roadside, and dusky- 

 winged species of the skipper brood were agile 

 with new-born life, yet glad to fold wings and 

 sleep in the sun on the road. These were sprites 

 of the deep forest. None were visible in the 

 town margin, though perhaps it was the sweep of 

 the north wind that kept them away. Bird re- 

 gions, too, showed a definite demarcation. In 

 the orchards and open fields of the town were 

 the home-loving birds, bluebirds, robins, song and 

 other sparrows, swallows, and in the marshes the 

 red-wing blackbirds. Not one of these did I see 

 after leaving the open spaces behind. The avi- 

 fauna of the scrub-oak underbrush and of the 

 white oak and pitch-pine trees overhead was as 



