146 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 



buds still tight and trim at the top, while two or 

 three freshly opened flowers at the bottom showed 

 the broad -winged lip exquisitely crested and bearded 

 with orange -yellow and deep pink hairs. 



"How could you see such a delicate tracery of 

 color amid all that barbaric mass of gold and green 

 that takes twenty tints in the bright sunlight?" 

 she asked. 



"Partly by a practised eye, partly by intuition, 

 partly by life -long knowledge of the component 

 parts of these early July meadows," I said. "How 

 do you, by glancing at a page of music, trace out 

 a faintly suggested theme amid a thicket of other 

 notes? Each to his craft, that is all." 



"Why!" she cried presently, "these flowers are 

 set on the stalk somehow upside down! What 

 was a lip in Twayblade is a lid." 



As I was about to explain the lack of the usual 

 twist in the future seed-vessel that made Calopo- 

 gon wear its chin on its forehead, contrary to 

 family rules, a burst of bird music from a Crab 

 tree overhead made us exchange signals of caution, 

 and pause with bated breath. 



Robin, grosbeak, purple finch? What bird, 

 keeping the spring ecstacy until midsummer, was 

 pouring forth such song? He was a ventriloquist 



