292 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



On February 27, 1855, Thoreau wrote in his journal: "A week 

 or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone, which 

 had freshly fallen and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into 

 a table-drawer. Today I am agreeably surprised that it has there 

 dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer, and 

 from a solid, narrow and sharp cone has become a broad, rounded, 

 open one, has in fact expanded into a conical flower with rigid 

 scales and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate winged 

 seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly con- 

 structed, is armed with a short spine pointing downward, as if to 

 protect its seeds from squirrels and birds. That hard, close cone, 

 which defied all violent attempts to open it, and could only be 

 cut open, has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth 

 and dryness. 



"The expanding of the pine cones, that too, is a season." 



The Honey Bee 



Wm. Prindle Alexander 



Flashing vision of buzzing brightness, 



Animate miracle of beauty, 



Living dream of fairy-lightness 



Fleet-winged bee, 



Free-lance with no other duty, 



Than to sally forth for booty, 



O'er the summer lea. 



Oh! beautiful, when brightly banded golden 



She probes the pendant mass of linden bloom, 



Or flashes on with precious riches rolled in 



Tiny baskets, or perchance hangs over 



Banks of soft perfume, 



Where grows the peerless, nectar-yielding clover. 



Ever going, ever coming 



With a glad symphonic humming, 



On her iridescent wings 



That rejoice with song untiring 



Full and free 



As the springtime robin sings. 



