8 AMONG THE WILD-FLOWERS 



face ! A group of a dozen or more of the 

 plants, some of them twin-flowered, were there 

 almost within reach, the first he had ever seen, 

 and his appreciation of the scene, visible in 

 every look and gesture, was greatly satisfying. 

 In the fall he came and moved a few of the 

 plants to a tamarack swamp in his own vicinity, 

 where they throve and bloomed finely for a few 

 years, and then for some unknown reason failed. 

 Nearly every June, my friend still comes to 

 feast his eyes upon this queen of the cypripe- 

 diums. 



While returning from my first search for the 

 lady's slipper, my hat fairly brushed the nest 

 of the red-eyed vireo, which was so cunningly 

 concealed, such an open secret, in the dim, 

 leafless underwoods, that I could but pause and 

 regard it. It was suspended from the end of 

 a small, curving sapling, was flecked here and 

 there by some whitish substance so as to blend 

 it with the gray mottled boles of the trees, 

 and, in the dimly lighted ground-floor of the 

 woods, was sure to escape any but the most 

 prolonged scrutiny. A couple of large leaves 

 formed a canopy above it. It was not so much 

 hidden as it was rendered invisible by texture 

 and position with reference to light and shade. 



A few summers ago I struck a new and beau- 

 tiful plant, in the shape of a weed that had 

 only recently appeared in that part of the coun- 

 try. I was walking through an August meadow 

 when I saw, on a little knoll, a bit of most 

 vivid orange, verging on a crimson. I knew 



