MY NEIGHBORS FIELD 



climbing dizzily. This is that milkweed 

 from whose stems the Indians flayed fibre 

 to make snares for small game, but what 

 use the beetles put it to except for a dis- 

 playing ground for their gay coats, I could 

 never discover. The white butterfly crop 

 comes on with the bigelovia bloom, and on 

 warm mornings makes an airy twinkling 

 all across the field. In September young 

 linnets grow out of the rabbit-brush in the 

 night. All the nests discoverable in the 

 neighboring orchards will not account for 

 the numbers of them. Somewhere, by the 

 same secret process by which the field 

 matures a million more seeds than it 

 needs, it is maturing red-hooded linnets 

 for their devouring. All the purlieus of 

 bigelovia and artemisia are noisy with 

 them for a month. Suddenly as they come 

 as suddenly go the fly-by-nights, that pitch 

 i37 



