LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
27 
Having left all nature still unemerged from the 
torpor of winter when I departed, and having 
since spent a tedious period of many weeks on the 
ocean without any intermission, except that of the 
brief but pleasant hour spent on Cayo Boca, 
you will easily understand the enthusiasm with 
which I embraced the first opening of sunlight the 
next morning, to hasten into the dense forests 
which closely environ the town. Everything here 
was new, scarcely a tree occurred that I was fami- 
liar with, and few I can now recollect sufficiently 
to identify. The magnolias, superb and magni- 
ficent as they are, were conspicuous and numerous; 
the large, glossy, laurel-like leaves gave them a 
rich and noble appearance, though 1 saw none of 
them adorned with the beautiful blossoms for 
which they are so famous. It may be that I was 
too late, that the season of flowering was over ; for, 
as I passed up the river, many trees on the banks 
were richly ornamented with blossoms, especially 
as I approached the hill country. Large and gor- 
geously coloured insects hovered over the flowers, 
or fluttered from bush to bush, in such profusion 
that I was almost bewildered. I was but scantily 
furnished with collecting-boxes, and one was no 
sooner occupied than it had to be emptied, and the 
former captive rejected for a more tempting prize, 
until at length I resolved to cease capturing, and 
content myself with admiring. A handsome locust 
was numerous in the larva state, of a glossy black, 
striped longitudinally with showy scarlet. I took 
a pretty little skipper butterfly which is not 
figured in Boisduval’s splendid “ Iconographie ; ” 
it is much like Hesperia malvce^ but still more 
resembles H, Froto of Godart, or H, Orcus of 
