Two kinds there
are,--one like the tiger-lily of the gardens, the petals curled back
and showing the whole leopard-spotted corolla,--the other bell-shaped,
rarer, and growing one only on a stalk. Both are to be found in open
spaces, bush-grown fields, and airy, sunny spots. It is worth a hot and
dusty June walk to get into one of those nooks. You can spend days and
not exhaust the study which one little triangular bit of overgrown
pasture affords,--spend them, not as a naturalist in close, patient
study, because to such a one a square yard of moss is as exhaustless as
the forests of Guiana to a Waterton, but as a nemophilist, taking simple
delight in mere observation and individual discovery.
"Many haps fall in the field
Seldom seen by watchful eyes."
And so all sorts of curious ways are discoverable by the mere
wood-lounger. At one time your way is barred by the great portcullis of
the strong threaded web of the field spider, who sits like a porter in
king's livery of black and gold at his gate. Then you have a peep into
the winding maelstroem-funnel of another of the spider family. Poe must
have suffered metempsychosis into the body of a blue-bottle, when he
wrote his "Descent into the Maelstroem"; for such an insect, hanging
midway down that treacherous, sticky descent, and seeing Death creeping
up from the bottom to grasp him, might have a clear idea of what was
undergone by the fisherman of Lofoden.
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