NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



are in a certain sense similar in character, but, 

 at the same time, each is different from each 

 other one and each one leads into new and 

 untrodden paths. He is preeminently an ob- 

 server as well as a man of rare intuition and 

 wonderful power of memory. He not only 

 notes those essentially obvious characteristics 

 which the average man may see, and assigns 

 them unerringly to their proper place, but he 

 looks further on and deeper into the subtler 

 life of nature and, as unerringly, assorts and 

 eliminates and assigns. He adds all these 

 manifestations of nature to the sum of all his 

 experiences, and from them all he draws for 

 his material for his own mental furnishing 

 and equipment. 



I have ridden with him over the road to 

 Sebastopol on fair winter days when the 

 earth was green and beautiful, and have 

 many a time been struck by the swiftness 

 with which he would turn from the dis- 

 cussion of some deep problem of human 

 life to note the peculiar brilliancy of the 

 song of some early linnet in the hedge; or to 

 point out the fact that the crimson-winged 

 blackbird on the fence was tardy this season 



354 



