IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 97 



bay ( Rhododendron Lapponicum), and to get 

 also a single forward specimen of Potentilla 

 frigida. Here and there was a bumblebee, 

 gathering honey from the small purple catkins 

 of the prostrate willows, now in full bloom. 

 (Rather high-minded bumblebees, they seemed, 

 more than five thousand feet above the sea !) 

 Professional entomologists (the chimney-swift, 

 perhaps, included) may smile at my simplicity, 

 but I was surprised to find this " animated tor- 

 rid zone," this " insect lover of the sun," in such 

 a Greenland climate. Did he not know that his 

 own poet had described him as w hot midsum- 

 mer's petted crone " ? But possibly he was 

 equally surprised at my appearance. He might 

 even have taken his turn at quoting Emer- 

 son : 



"Pants up hither the spruce clerk 

 From South Cove and City Wharf " ? 1 



Of the two, he was unquestionably the more at 

 home, for he was living where in forty-eight 

 hours I should have found my death. So much 

 is Bombus better than a man. 



In a little pool of water, which seemed to be 



1 But by this time the clerk's appearance was, to say the least, 

 not reprehensibly "spruce." For one thing, what with the moist- 

 ure and the sharp stones, he was already becoming jealous of his 

 shoes, lest they should not hold together till he could get back to 

 the Crawford House. 

 7 



