Page:Percival Lowell - an afterglow.djvu/175

An Afterglow

We all think the type and printing of the memoir beautiful. It has such a large minded and open face, and the several points are so well made by line isolation. I shall return one copy when I have given it sufficient mulling.

Today I went out to ascertain whether my oak on the mesa's edge westward, was yet in flower. It was not and was a little behind the other oaks in the swelling of its buds. On the way I studied the butterflies. The Colias eurytheme, Ariadne and Keewaydin, were everywhere. I never saw such numbers of them before—Ariadne and Keewaydin are the winter forms of the species Eurytheme. Then there were the little Euchlöe sara and the tame Hesperia xanihus, beautifully mottled in black and white. Daisies studded the ground about me as I studied their visitors. The paint-brush leaves are up but no brushes as yet. The season is very backward although the last three days here have been typical Arizona summer ones, and everything now should come on apace unless we have a setback.

The Sigillum, a capital idea, is now under universal consideration—and in process of complete evolution.

The exodus eastward will probably occur on the 25th inst. or possibly the 27th. 137