Page:Florida Trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive.djvu/42

 potato patch all to themselves, though they swirled there most conspicuously. I picked out of it, as I watched, occasional flecks of deep red which I took at first for monarchs, and so many of them were. The monarch is a common butterfly in the North, one of our most conspicuous varieties from early summer until the low swung sun beckons them South, whither they migrate in accumulating swarms from September until frost. In Massachusetts these migrations never contain enough members to make them conspicuous. Farther south the numbers increase until from New Jersey south we hear almost yearly accounts of the swarms. I took one of these monarchs as he sailed by me across the Orange Park boulevard. He was just Anosia plexippus, but such a splendid fellow! Never before had I seen a butterfly of this species quite so large or so richly colored. There was a velvety quality about all his markings and a sumptuousness of outline and development that made him far superior to the Northern monarchs which I have examined closely. Other specimens have confirmed this impression, and I begin to think that the Southern-born Anosia plexippus, developing under stronger sun and from a chrysalis un-*chilled by frost, excels in beauty his Northern brother. I wonder if other butterfly hunters can confirm or disprove this.