6 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



out good "connections." The queenly calla lily is among its 

 nearest of kin, and so is the Jack-in-the-pulpit and the calamus 

 root, these latter well known to country boys at least. In 

 point of beauty, the flower clusters of our plant are a match 

 for many flowers more famous. Its great purplish spathes, 

 curiously mottled with shades of green yellow and brown 

 are among the largest of ourr native wild-flowers. In shape, 

 too, they are unique, reminding one of some delicate sea-shell 

 enclosing the true flowers, bunched in a round head within. 

 These flowers produce quantities of pollen, a fact of which 

 the honey bee is well aware. It is here that she gets her first 

 pollen and she not infrequently ventures after it so early in 

 the year, that she freezes to death by the way. Other and 

 smaller insects often visit the flowers, and a certain thrifty 

 spider that lives in the bogs takes advantage of this and 

 spreads her web in the spathes. 



In New York and New England, the blue-bird and robin 

 are popularly supposed to herald the advance of spring, but 

 the song sparrow is not a bit behind them and but for his 

 retiring ways would probably receive the greatest homage. 

 In the latitude of New York and Chicago his slender pipe 

 is heard long before the others and in mild winters it is doubt- 

 ful if he leaves several of the northern States at all. The 

 "January thaw" loosens his voice and on all bright days there- 

 after his tinkling notes may be heard, though to many the 

 song is drowned in the hum of the city, or confused with 

 the noisy chirping of the voluble English sparrow. When 

 the migratory song sparrows come up from the south and the 

 voice of our resident birds takes on more mellowness, spring 

 seems fairly to have begun, no matter what the temperature or 

 the aspect of the sky. These little ground-loving, brown 

 birds seem part of the earth itself and their liquid notes, 

 sprinkled from bush to bush along the thawing stream blend 



