WATSON'S CROSSING. 79 



weed, and it was with unfeigned pleasure that, half a 

 rod distant, I could buiy my boat in a wilderness of cle- 

 matis, now in the very height of its blooming. 



While I lingered here, a pretty butterfly, the red ad- 

 miral, alighted upon my knee as I was writing, and 

 seemed wholly at ease in this imusual position. Some- 

 thing upon my clothes was attractive to it, and the 

 graceful movements of its proboscis, and occasional 

 down-dipping of one antenna and then the other was 

 amusing. I noticed that the right and left wing moved 

 separately down and up, as though to retain the creat- 

 ure's balance, which the w^ind threatened, and at each 

 such movement of the wings the corresponding antennae 

 likewise dipped. This butterfly occasionally flew to the 

 bushes near by, but never to remain long away, and 

 sooner or later returned and was my companion for a 

 great part of the day. 



An acre or two of neglected meadow reaches to the 

 creek's shore, a half mile distant, and now it is brow- 

 deep in boneset. It was scarcely penetrable, and a par- 

 adise for butterflies and bees. Many of the latter, in- 

 deed, took my intrusion rather ill-naturedly, buzzing 

 and staring me in the face, but none stung me. The 

 common milk-weed butterfly was remarkably abundant, 

 and made good the remarks of Scudder concerning them : 

 " Having multiplied to excess, vast swarms are found to- 

 gether ; together they mount in the air to lofty heights, 

 as no other butterfly appears to do, and play about in 

 ceaseless gyrations ; and sometimes they crowd so thick- 

 ly upon a tree or bush as by their color to chanire its 

 w^hole ai32)earance." This they did to-day, and a small 



