LETTEES FEOM ALABAMA. 87 
still, and making no attempt to escape wlien toiiclied 
with the fingers ; but these Skippers formed a 
singular exception. Before the lid was half raised, 
all was scuffle and flutter within, the first intima- 
tion I had of their birth ; though, as I had ex- 
amined them every day, I knew by the discolora- 
tion of the pupa that the change was near. Before 
I could catch a glimpse of anything within, one 
dashed out like lightning, and if I had not shut 
the box, the other would have followed as quickly ; 
I was obliged to get my gauze net, and cover the 
box while I opened it, or I could not have secured 
the specimen. The others, as they successively 
attained the imago state, each manifested the same 
wildness. 
This tribe of Butterflies show their natural 
proximity to the Moths, as well by the position of 
holding their wings, as by other more prominent 
marks. Although like others they not unfre- 
quently close the wings, the two surfaces being 
in contact, yet, far more commonly, they are held 
upward diagonally, the surfaces widely separated, 
and the hind pair almost horizontal. 
The mode of clearing forest land for agriculture, 
called girdling, is almost universally practised here. 
^ All incision is made around the trunk of a tree with 
an axe, so that the inner bark is completely severed 
all round. The ascent of the sap being thus pre- 
vented, though no perceptible change is immedi- 
ately manifested, death inevitably takes place in 
the course of the season. The scanty underbrush 
of scattered shrubs and slender saplings is torn up 
with an instrument called a grubbing hoe ; and in 
the ensuing spring (a fence of oak rails having been 
run through the forest in the winter), this forest 
