NOTES AND SUGGESTIONS 107 



sweet-fern : Put a handful of sweet-fern (Myrica asplenifolia) in 

 your pocket, a leaf or two in your book ; and whenever you pass 

 it in the fields, pull it through your fingers for the odor. Sweet 

 gale and bayberry are its two sweet relatives. 



PAGE 5 



milkweed, boneset, peppermint, turtle-head, joe-pye-weed, jewel-weed, 

 smartweed, and budding goldenrod : Go down to the nearest mead- 

 ow stream and gather for school as many of these flowers as you 

 can find. Examine their seeds. 



toind is a sower going forth to sow: Besides the winds what other 

 seed-scatterers do you know ? They are many and very interest- 

 ing. 



PAGE 6 



" Over the fields where the daisies grow. . . ." From " Thistle- 

 down " in a volume of poems called " Summer-Fallow," by 

 Charles Buxton Going. 



seed-souls of thistles and daisies and fall dandelions seeking new 

 bodies for themselves in the warm soil of Mother Earth : On your 

 country walks, watch to see where such seeds have been caught, 

 or have fallen. They will be washed down into the earth by rain 

 and snow. If you can mark the place, go again next spring to see 

 for yourself if they have risen in " new bodies " from the earth. 

 sweet pepper-bush : The sweet pepper-bush is also called white 

 alder and clethra. 



chickadees : Stand stock-still upon meeting a flock of chickadees 

 and see how curious they become to know you. You may know 

 the chickadee by its tiny size, its gray coat, black cap and throat, 

 its saying " chick-a-dee," and its plaintive call of " pbxebe " in three 

 distinct syllables. 



PAGE 7 



clock strikes twelve : As we have thought of midsummer as the 

 hour from twelve to one in the day, so the dead of winter seems 

 by comparison the twelve o'clock of midnight. 

 shimmering of the spiders' silky balloons : It is the curious habit 

 of many of the spiders to travel, especially in the fall, by throw- 

 ing skeins of silky web into the air, which the breezes catch 

 and carry up, while the spiders, like balloonists, hang in their 

 web ropes below and sail away. 



