132 SAVAGE SVANETIA. 



mountain slieep, from year to year in places 

 wliich would give anything but a mountain 

 sheep vertigo to look at. One of these paths, 

 the lowest, was commanded by our eyrie, and 

 on this we all fixed our gaze intently for the 

 next few hours. 



Round us nothing seemed to grow but 

 a few bilberries, but lower down we had passed 

 through deep beds of blue larkspur, broken 

 off and seen our companions eat the seed pods 

 of great tiger lilies, and almost lost sight of 

 each other amongst the tall stems of a white 

 umbelliferous flower unfamiliar to me. Over 

 the heads of the flowers now and then flitted 

 a clouded yellow, and not once or twice, but 

 several times, I saw the grand hovermg flight 

 of an Apollo, a flight which always struck me 

 as the strongest and most hawk -like among 

 butterflifes. I used often to watch these fine 

 fellows poising like a wind-hover over the 

 wild flowers, but any attempt to catch them 



