38 
LETTERS FROM ALABAMA, 
its flowers being no less remarkable for fragrance 
than for elegance of form, and brilliancy of colour. 
I found that it possessed attractions not only for 
man ; for, having gathered a spike, it was visited, 
even while in my hand, by a fine yellow Butterfly 
{Jjolias Eubule^ Boisd.), which instantly began 
probing the deep tubular blossoms with its sucker ; 
so eager was it to gratify its appetite, that without 
any trouble I caught it in my fingers. 
Many romantic spots occurred in the course of 
my walk, especially where some little brook crossed 
the road, making, where it emerged from and again 
entered the forest, pretty shady glens, so sombre 
with the bushes, whose over-arching tops touched 
each other overhead, and whose verdant and leafy 
branches seemed like an impenetrable wall, that 
the rays of an almost vertical sun were effectually 
shut out. 
In these cool retreats — and I saw several such — 
the Emerald Virgin Dragon-fly [Agrion Virginica) 
delights to dwell. All the Dragon-fly tribe, as 
they are water-insects in their first stages, are ob- 
served to prefer hawking in the vicinity of water, 
as affording in abundance the prey which they 
pursue ; but the open pond, or broad river, is most 
generally their resort. But he who would see the 
Emerald Virgin, must go to some such hidden 
brook as I have described ; over which as it flows 
silently, in a deep soft bed of moss of the richest 
green, or brawls over a pebbly bottom, with im- 
potent rage, three or four of these lovely insects 
may be seen at almost any hour on any summer- 
day. It is, indeed, a fly of surpassing elegance 
and beauty ; the male especially, whose long and 
slender body is of a metallip green, so refulgent 
