THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 107 



"Where the saihng clouds go by, 

 Like ships upon the sea." 

 A few httle clouds wander off by themselves, and there 

 are great fleecy ones that recall the impression of snow^- 

 topped peaks. The wind soars with them somewhere ; it 

 is one of the peculiarities of our da3'-dream that we care 

 not how or whither. A cock leads by his speckled harem. 

 A cat of many da^'S makes our acquaintance, and two 

 festive kittens almost arouse us from our reverie by their 

 jolly performances. We turn our ej^es slowly from their 

 gambles to the green meadows, wall-partitioned, that roll 

 to the distant hills; they are alive with motion. The 

 breeze tosses the daisies till we think of the white crests of 

 the actual sea. Clouds and shadow^s are cast over the 

 green waves, and then we think of the mountains where 

 long ago, as a child, we watched similar shadows chase 

 along the slopes and leap the ravines. As the clouds fly, 

 so do the days and years. 



It is a beautiful scene upon which w^e gaze ; ours by 

 right divine. Somebody else pays the taxes and claims 

 nominal possession. Without claim of primo-geniture, or 

 shares in mills or mining stock, or oil-wells (more's the 

 pity) we do owm manj^ a patch of land by superior appre- 

 ciation. No man can steal or misappropriate our acres. 

 Bulls and bears cannot effect the values. Warning signs 

 and barbed w^re fences are not potent to exclude us. He 

 w'ho loves Nature, is not deterred by apparent inaccessi- 

 bilities, for he surmounts all opposition. 



Afar off we hear the tinkle of little bells, "sweet bells 

 jangled" by some milky mother. This was all that was 

 wanting to sooth into complete forgetfulness. We now 

 have the ranz-des-vaches and alpine yodel. Slowly, cloud 

 after cloud fades out before us, and the landscape grows 

 hazy as wnth autumn mist. The bells sound more and 

 more remote, and we pass from vision into dreams. Who 

 shall determine the boundary line between them ? 

 Brown University, Providence, R. I. 



