ALABAMA. 129 



they scamper off on a bee-line for the village. And so 

 Philip Gosse, too, goes home to supper, and to bed in a 

 room with every window open, but latticed to keep out the 

 bats and birds. Before going to sleep, perhaps, he will sit 

 a few minutes at the window, while the chuck-will's-widows 

 call and answer from all directions in the woods, with their 

 mysterious and extraordinary notes clearly enunciated in 

 the deep silence of the night. Gosse tried on many occa- 

 sions to see these strange birds, but they are extremely 

 shy, although so neighbourly and familiar ; nor was he 

 ever successful, although he wearied himself in the 

 search. 



Mount Pleasant proved to be an excellent centre for 

 entomologizing, and in particular there was a little prairie- 

 knoll, about a mile from Bohanan's house, which was one 

 mass of blue larkspurs and orange milkweed, and a 

 marvellous haunt of butterflies. From this small hill the 

 summit of an apparently endless forest could be seen in all 

 directions, broken only by curls of white smoke arising 

 here and there from unseen dwellings. Here he would 

 find the blue swallowtail (Papilio phanor), with its shot 

 wings of black and azure, vibrating on the flowers of the 

 milkweed ; the black swallowtail {Papilio asterius), an old 

 friend from Newfoundland ; the orange tawny Archippus ; 

 the American Painted Beauty {Cynthia Hicntera), with its 

 embroidery of silver lines and pearly eyes ; and, most 

 gorgeous of all, the green-clouded swallowtail {Papilio 

 Troilus), over whose long black wings is dispersed a milky 

 way of grass-green dots and orange crescents. The 

 abundance of these large species struck him with ever- 

 recurring wonder. In a letter of July he says : " An eye 

 accustomed only to the small and generally inconspicuous 

 butterflies of our own country, the Pontic?, Vanessce, and 

 Hipparchice, can hardly picture to itself the gaiety of the air 



K 



