SIGNS OF SPRING 165 



swamp where I had been accustomed to wan- 

 der as a child, with no thought of finding 

 anything new (as if there were not some- 

 thing new everywhere), I stopped before a 

 bush bearing purple buds and clusters of dry 

 capsules. The capsules might have been 

 those of Andromeda, for aught I should have 

 noticed, but the buds had a novel appear- 

 ance and told a different story. Again I be- 

 took myself to the Manual, and lo ! this 

 bush, growing in the swamp that I should 

 have thought I knew better than any other 

 in the world, turned out to be another 

 species our only northern one of Leu- 

 cothoe. So I might have fitted name and 

 thing together long ago, if I had kept my 

 eyes open. As Hamlet said, " There 's the 

 rub." Keeping one's eyes open is n't half 

 so easy as it sounds. Really, the bush is 

 one that nobody except a botanist ever sees 

 (which is the reason, doubtless, why it has 

 no vernacular name) ; or if here and there 

 a man does see it, it is sure to be in flower- 

 ing time (in middle June), when he passes 

 it by without a second glance as " high-bush 

 blueberry." I am pleased to have it grow- 



