18 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



of its plant associations. It is not surprising, then, to learn 

 that many of the eminent botanists of the present generation 

 trace their interest in plants to the time when, as bird students, 

 they wandered in field and wood. One might go still further 

 and point to the fact that the birds themselves, are good bota- 

 nists. They know which species produce the edible fruits and 

 their judgement in the matter of nesting materials and the most 

 satisfactory locations for summer residences cannot be ques- 

 tioned. The wood pewee, the humming-bird and various 

 others are great students of bark patterns and lichen decora- 

 tions and reproduce them in the ornamentation of their nests. 

 Even stranger than this some birds are known to regularly 

 decorate their nests with fresh flowers. The purple martin 

 is as fond of peach blossoms as the Japanese are of their 

 cherry blossoms. 



There are, of course, a few individuals — those who re- 

 gard themselves as hard-head business-men or professional 

 scientists — who would almost as soon be caught robbing a 

 church as gathering flowers, but even these have, perhaps far 

 beneath the surface, an interest in plants. They are not 

 averse to going berrying, or nutting, or hunting bee-trees or 

 gathering mushrooms. To such, the virtues of wintergreen 

 and birch and sassafras and slippery elm and ginseng may be 

 matters of importance and though they disclaim an interest 

 in plants they commonly pay homage to vegetation in general 

 by spending at least tw(^ weeks of every year in a wilderness 

 of plants. 



The automobile has done much to reduce the number 

 of those who would ordinarily take up the study of plants. 

 I do not now allude to the important part it plays in reducing 

 the total of the po])ulation, but to the fact that it is so much 

 easier and less dangerous to ride than to walk that we natur- 



