The Stolen Moccasins 53 



and ever-varying conditions of life, transcend in an in- 

 comparable manner the contrivances and adaptations 

 which the most fertile imagination of man could 

 invent." ' 



The extinction of species of orchids is due to causes 

 inharmonious with Nature, therefore, more than to the 

 failure of the insects in fertilization and cross-fertiliza- 

 tion. Man and his bush-whack and bog-hoe are doing 

 more toward the extinction of our rarer species of all 

 plant-life in their continental range than any other 

 natural element, in the swampy, mountainous districts 

 of the East, as well as in the open swells on the prairies 

 of the West. 



The late Grant Allen expressed regret that the 

 native Yellow Lady's Slipper of England, Cypripedium 

 calceolus, ''lingers in but two places," one of those 

 stations being on '* a single estate in Durham, where 

 it is as carefully preserved by its owner as if it were 

 pheasants or fallow-deer." 



The wind, rains, and flowing streams, the birds, as 

 well as migration and immigration of the nations over 

 the world, are ever unconscious bearers of the seeds of 

 our rare flowers and common dooryard weeds ; yet 

 for the rarer species Nature is indebted to the insects 

 for the important process of cross-fertilization. 



In country towns of New England, where summer 



resorts for tourists are numerous, one finds youthful 



venders selling the roots of the Orchid Family to 



" lovers of flowers," and thus even the lovers of Nature 



' Darwin, Fertilization of Orchids, pp. 285-286. 1895. 



