WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 143 



forest near, with moist little valleys, and here I saw for the 

 first time the American spring vegetation in its full beauty. 

 The woods were full of an anemone-like flower (Thalictrum 

 anemonoides) , the curious Dutchman's breeches (Dicentra 

 cucullaria) in continuous sheets, the spring beauty (Clay- 

 tonia pulchella) equally abundant, with patches of Phlox 

 divaricata, the dwarf blue Delphinium tricome, the little blue- 

 eyed Mary (Collinsia vema), yellow, blue, and white violets, 

 Jeffersonia diphylla, and many other flowers strange to Eng- 

 lish eyes. During one walk I found a fine plant of Mertensia 

 virginica in flower. But though these were wonderfully at- 

 tractive to me, owing to there being so many forms of flower 

 quite unknown in England, the actual amount of floral colour 

 and beauty was not to be compared with our own. There 

 was nothing to equal the sheets of bluebells, primroses, and 

 anemones in our woods, the buttercups and early orchises 

 of our meadows, or the marsh-marigolds of our marshes and 

 river-banks. This subject of the comparative abundance and 

 the striking differences between North America and Europe 

 in this respect I have discussed somewhat fully in my Fort- 

 nightly Review article on " English and American Flowers," 

 reprinted in my " Studies, Scientific and Social " (vol. i. p. 

 199). 



One evening when at Mr. Dury's an interviewer called 

 and showed the most remarkable ignorance. He thought 

 Darwin's theory was limited to the change of monkeys into 

 men ; that Englishmen were all either Lord Dundrearys or 

 roughs ; that the lowest Cockney talk was the " English ac- 

 cent," which he was much surprised that I did not possess ; 

 and, above all, that America was the finest and the greatest 

 country in the world, and that all who were born elsewhere 

 were to be pitied and condoled with. But this was quite an 

 exceptional type. All my other American interviewers were 

 educated men and knew their business. 



My friend Mr. Dury had had the rare experience of being 

 bitten by a dead rattlesnake with very painful consequences. 

 When in Florida he shot a very large rattlesnake, and decided 

 to take its head only, in order to examine its dentition. He 



