328 WILD TLOWEES OF AUGUST. 



small retired pools are sometimes entirely covered with 

 the thick-set foliage, affording an impervious retreat to 

 thousands of lymnece and aquatic insects. The stain- 

 less flowers are of so delicate a structure that they are 

 injured by contact with the water, and instead there- 

 fore of floating on its surface, they are carefully pro- 

 vided with elevating stalks, around whose bases is a 

 pellucid protecting bractea. About wild commons 

 and shady untrodden lanes, little shield-like pools 

 often appeal', whose waters are entirely hidden, roofed 

 over with a verdant covering of the Hydrocliaris ; and 

 scattered about this emerald table appear the nume- 

 rous white and delicate tri-petalled blossoms, as if 

 Titania and her fairy court had there prepared a pic- 

 nic banquet in the shadowy retreat. On such a picture 

 I have gazed in the silence of a summer's evening, 

 when (as these silvery flowers are long conspicuous 

 in the twilight) the splendours of the broad rising 

 moon has increased and harmonized the illusion of 

 the scene. 



