40 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



plant. There the sticky masses cling closer to the 

 quaint horns which each bloom protrudes from 

 behind the anthers, there to drop pollen grains on 

 the stigma and insure the cross-fertilization of 

 the flower. Thus unwittingly butterfly and bee as 

 they sail about the sun-steeped meadow suffer 

 discomfort for their own good, insuring vigorous 

 crops of milkweed for another summer, for them- 

 selves or their descendants. 



With these comes the smaller, Colias philodice, 

 the sulphur, bringing with him the very gold of the 

 sunlight. Colias philodice has many changes. 

 Sometimes the black margins of his wings are 

 missing and his gold melts into the sunshine and 

 vanishes before your eyes. Another may come 

 that is white instead of gold, a wan ghost of a 

 colias that seems born of the mist instead of the 

 sunshine and to vanish into nothing when he flies 

 away, as mist does. Sometimes the colias flies up 

 into the wood and lights, and as I come to the spot 

 where I think I saw him stop I find nothing but a 

 single bloom of the golden gerardia which now 

 slips from glade to glade all along where the hard- 

 wood growth comes down to meet the meadow 



