Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/295

 to be Papilio asterias, also a symphony in black and yellow, with blue trimmings. The asterias is born of a grub that thrives on members of the parsley family, and you may find his brilliant black and greenish-yellow stripes on almost any carrot bed, North or South. Poke him and he will most strangely put out two horns much like a moth's antennæ, from some concealed sheath in his head, and at the same time produce a musky smell wherewith to confound you. Asterias ranges from Maine to Florida in the summer time and westward to the Mississippi River. I have found him nowhere more plentiful than here.

In and out of the tangle of the thicket with asterias and cresphontes pass two other Papilios, palamedes and troilus. Palamedes might be described as a larger and more dignified asterias, being nearly the size of cresphontes, but having wider spaces of clear black on the upper sides of his wings. His grub feeds upon the laurels and Magnolia glauca, and the butterfly has been known to visit southern New England though his usual range is from Virginia south. You will easily know palamedes from cresphontes, even on the wing, by the lack of yellow in his coloring. Especially is this true of a glimpse from beneath. Cresphontes rivals the sun in his gold when seen from below, palamedes is dark beneath with the after wings as gorgeous as a peacock's tail with