XIV 

 IN FIELD AND WOOD 



I. INTENSIVE OBSERVATION 



THE casual glances or the admiring glances that 

 we cast upon nature do not go very far in mak- 

 ing us acquainted with her real ways. Only long and 

 close scrutiny can reveal these to us. The look of 

 appreciation is not enough; the eye must become 

 critical and analytical if we would know the exact 

 truth. 



Close scrutiny of an object in nature will nearly 

 always yield some significant fact that our admir- 

 ing gaze did not take in. I learned a new fact about 

 the teazel the other day by scrutinizing it more 

 closely than I had ever before done; I discovered 

 that the wave of bloom begins in the middle of the 

 head and spreads both ways, up and down, whereas 

 in all other plants known to me with flowering 

 heads or spikes, except the goldenrod and the steeple- 

 bush, the wave of bloom begins at the bottom and 

 creeps upward like a flame. In the goldenrod it 

 drops down from branch to branch. In vervain, in 

 blueweed, in Venus' looking-glass, in the mullein, 

 in the evening-primrose, and others, the bloom 

 creeps slowly upward from the bottom. 



