A MYSTERY AND ITS SOLUTION

Extract

Seated at my desk this evening, with a copy of Vol. I. of Edwards' Butterflies of North America before me, I am forcibly reminded, as I turn to the magnificent plate designated as “Argynnis I.,” of an experience of my boyhood. My home, from 1858 to the fall of 1863, was in the village of Salem, N. C., famous as one of the most successful of the settlements made by the Moravian Brethren under the lead of the good Count Zinzendorf, and well known throughout the South as the seat of an excellent seminary for young ladies. The war broke out and the hopes cherished of sending me to the North to be educated were in conseqnence disappointed. I was left to pursue my studies under a tutor, and to roam the neighborhood of afternoons in quest of insects, of which I gathered a large collection. Unfortunately my stock of books upon entomology was limited, and aside from an original copy of Say's work, of no especial value. My determination of species was therefore very imperfect.