Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/298

 of that of the clethra. Like the clethra too it has a most delectable perfume, dainty and sweet as anything that grows in the South and far surpassing in light and seductive aroma the heavy perfume of the groves. The odor of this shrub floats like pleasant fancies all along the dusty ridge road and continually wooes all that pass,—insects and men alike.

Nor are the Papilios all the bright-winged butterflies of the ridge. Here flies the zebra, his long, almost dragonfly-like wings rippled with black and yellow bars that seem to flow over them as he flies like dapple of sunlight on a black pool. The zebra is a lazy fellow. Compared with most other butterflies he fairly saunters along. I fancy that if one of those long-tailed skippers, or even one of the silver-spotted, that both frequent the same groves, were to find him on their mad track they would telescope him.

The Papilios seem to be the butterflies of the higher air levels. You are more apt to find the zebras flying head high and the skippers still lower. Perhaps this usual difference of air strata is why those collisions do not take place. Lower still, flitting among the very herbs at your feet are other, beautiful if smaller, varieties. Out of the shadows of the foliage come most awkwardly the spangled nymphs, pleased with the sunlight, yet scared in a moment into fleeing awkwardly back