252 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
themselves. They declare war. The friend 
never declares his love. 
March 28,1857. At Lee’s Cliff and this side, 
I see half a dozen buff-edged butterflies, Van¬ 
essa antiopa, and pick up three dead or dying 
— two together, the edges of their wings gone. 
Several are fluttering over the dry rock debris 
under the cliff, in whose crevices probably they 
have wintered. Two of the three I pick up are 
not dead, though they will not fly. Verily 
their day is a short one. What has checked 
their frail life? Within the buff-edge is black 
with bright sky-blue spots. Those little oblong 
spots on the black ground are light as you look 
directly down on them, but from one side they 
change through violet to a crystalline rose pur¬ 
ple.The broad buff edge of the Vanessa 
antiopa’s wings harmonizes with the russet 
ground it flutters over, and as it stands con¬ 
cealed in the winter with its wings folded above 
its back, in a cleft in the rocks, the gray-brown 
underside of its wings prevents its being distin¬ 
guished from the rocks themselves.When 
I witness the first plowing and planting I ac¬ 
quire a long lost confidence in the earth that it 
will nourish the seed that is committed to its 
bosom. I am surprised to be reminded that 
there is warmth is it. We have not only 
warmer skies then but a warmer earth. The 
