In
the lane as I came along just now I noticed one spot, ten feet square
or so, where more than a hundred had collected, holding a revel, a
gyration-dance, or butterfly good-time, winding and circling, down and
across, but always keeping within the limits. The little creatures
have come out all of a sudden the last few days, and are now very
plentiful. As I sit outdoors, or walk, I hardly look around without
somewhere seeing two (always two) fluttering through the air in
amorous dalliance. Then their inimitable color, their fragility,
peculiar motion--and that strange, frequent way of one leaving the
crowd and mounting up, up in the free ether, and apparently never
returning. As I look over the field, these yellow-wings everywhere
mildly sparkling, many snowy blossoms of the wild carrot gracefully
bending on their tall and taper stems--while for sounds, the distant
guttural screech of a flock of guinea-hens comes shrilly yet somehow
musically to my ears. And now a faint growl of heat-thunder in the
north--and ever the low rising and falling wind-purr from the tops of
the maples and willows.
_Aug. 20_.--Butterflies and butterflies, (taking the place of the
bumble-bees of three months since, who have quite disappear'd,)
continue to flit to and fro, all sorts, white, yellow, brown,
purple--now and then some gorgeous fellow flashing lazily by on wings
like artists' palettes dabb'd with every color. Over the breast of
the pond I notice many white ones, crossing, pursuing their idle
capricious flight.
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