40 BOULDER REVERIES. 



these old woods, I seek no company but my own. 

 On such a day as this three is a multitude ; two, 

 a crowd. By myself I can ponder. By myself 

 I can get closer to the birds, flowers and insects. 

 By myself I can dream dreams of days that are 

 gone of days that perhaps will be. 



A Grapta butterfly alights on the trunk of the 

 red oak beside me and slowly opens and closes 

 its wings several times in succession. Then, un- 

 folding its proboscis or long coiled tongue, it 

 thrusts it deep into a crevice of the bark and 

 sips sap from a cranny therein. What set the 

 red oak bark to yielding sap at this season of 

 the year and how did the butterfly find the forti- 

 eth part of a square inch in which its meal was 

 present? Its sense of smell must be very 

 strong. 



I pull away a shred of the bark and find a 

 long black elaterid 7 and several other juice-lov- 

 ing beetles ; also two or three slender bodied flies 

 all gathering sap from in and about the same 

 crevice. Red oak sap, slightly soured, is then 

 attractive to numerous kinds of insects on a 

 July "dog-day." 



'Melanactes piceus De G. 



