THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



covering wooded isles. Then as our 

 guide led us on to what he termed the 

 huckleberry patch, but which we could 

 only think of as one of Nature's sanc- 

 tuaries, for there, upon its carpet of 

 moss, midst its shadowed recesses of 

 dense cedar and tamarack, a scene of 

 such charming beauty and loveliness 

 was revealed that it made the heart 

 of the Nature lover throb with joy and 

 thrill with delight, for it mattered not 

 in what direction we chanced to look, 

 our eyes rested upon clusters or sin- 

 gles of the pink lady's slipper, charming 

 and entrancing the beholder with their 

 bright colors and the abundance of 

 their numbers. The perfumed atmos- 

 phere seemed almost intoxicating with 

 the delightful fragrance of the flowers 

 of the pitcher plant, competitors of the 

 lady's-slipper for vastness in numbers, 

 while their odd shape and coat of red 

 attracted the eye, and as we went on 

 farther beds filled with the whorled po- 

 gonia, bowing their heads in prayerful 

 attitude as if acknowledging a debt to 

 their Creator, again filled our souls 

 with joy, and then, as if we had not 

 .already drank to our fill, another scene 

 'Opened up before us in which, inter- 

 mingled among those pitcher-shaped 

 leaves, the highly perfumed and deep 

 tinted flowers of the pitcher plant, the 

 charming pink of the lady's-slipper and 

 the prayerful pogonias, were gathered 

 into delightful clusters the bunehberry, 



THE BUNCHBERRY TURNING THEIR PALE 

 FACES SUNWARD. 



turning their pale faces sunward, 

 grasping its stray beams stealing 

 through clefts in the dense foilage re- 

 flecting their charm and beauty 



All conditions seemed favorable to 

 finding the showy lady-slipper but, if 

 it were there, it succeeded in eluding 

 us, for which we were sorry indeed, for 

 we would have done it no injury, as 

 we were hunting without a gun. 



Having succeeded in getting pic- 

 tures of all of the others, and as the day 

 was drawing to a close, the "no-see- 

 ems," the Indians name for mosquitoes, 

 were reminding us that even there we 

 were not exempt from their molesting 

 bites, and as our guide wanted to know 

 if we could take pictures with those 

 things all night, we most reluctantly 

 took leave of one of Nature's most sac- 

 red haunts, for had we not been in one 

 of the sanctuaries of the Most High 

 and worshipped midst its most beau- 

 teous scenes? 





THE ODD AND DEEPLY TINTED FLOWERS OF 

 THE PITCHHER PLANT. 



Flowers. 



Flowers from distant, sunny lands, 

 Flowers from skilful florists' hands, 

 Flowers in sheltered garden beds, 

 Or clambering high above our heads; 

 Flowers by brooklet, lake and pond, 

 And on the mountain heights beyond; 

 Flowers that overrun the fields, 

 And that the winding roadside yields; 

 Flowers amid the ripening grain, 

 Woodland flowers, a dainty train; 

 Flowers that greet us in the Spring, 

 And those the Autumn changes bring; 

 Flowers as white and pure as snow, 

 Or blooms with brilliant tints aglow; 

 In all this wondrous world of ours, 

 What can compare with nature's flowers? 



— Emma Peirce. 



