422 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



Siminole when hunting a deer, advancing with slow steps, 

 obliquely, and under cover of dense foliage, and behind the 

 limbs, and when the bee was engaged in probing a flower he 

 would leap nearer, and again instantly retire out of sight, under 

 a leaf or behind a branch, at the same time keeping a sharp eye 

 on me. When he had gotten within two feet of his prey, and 

 the bee was intent on sipping the delicious nectar of a flower, 

 with his back next the spider, he instantly sprang upon him, 

 grasping him over the back and shoulders, and both disap- 

 peared. I expected the bee had carried off the spider, but I 

 soon saw them, both together, suspended by a strong elastic 

 thread, which the spider had fixed to the twig from which he 

 leaped on the bee. The rapidity of the bee's wing, as he 

 endeavoured to extricate himself, made them both together 

 look like a moving vapour, until the bee became wearied with 

 whirling ; in a quarter of an hour he was completely exhausted 

 by his struggles and the wounds of the butcher, became mo- 

 tionless, and expired in the arms of the devouring spider, who, 

 ascending the rope with his game, retired to feast on it under 

 cover of the leaves." 



Now, if it please thee, gentle reader, we will exhibit a scene 

 of peace; the roar of the alligator shall not be heard, the cruelty 

 of the spider shall not be seen, but all shall be sunshine, 

 flowers, and butterflies. " I continued along the beach about 

 a quarter of a mile, and came to a forest of Agave vivipara, 

 the scapes or flowering stems of which rose to the height of 

 thirty feet, the tops regularly branched in the form of a 

 pyramidal tree, the plants very near each other, and covering a 

 space of several acres. When the seeds of this plant are ripe 

 they vegetate, and grow on the branches until the scape dies, 

 when the young plants fall to the ground, take root, and fix 

 themselves in the sand : the plants grow to a prodigious size 

 before the scape shoots up from the centre. Having contem- 

 plated this admirable grove, I proceeded towards the banks of 

 the river, and though it was now late in December, the aromatic 

 groves were in full bloom. The broad -leaved Myrtus, 

 Erythrina corallodendrum, Cactus cochinellifer, Cacalia 

 suffruticosa, and particularly Rhizophora conjugata, which 

 stood close to and in the salt waters of the river, were covered 

 with beautiful white sweet-scented flowers, which attracted to 

 them two or three species of very beautiful butterflies, one of 



