THE MUCH-DESPISED SKUNK CABBAGE EARLIEST OF SPRING FLOWERS 229 



thousands of 

 swarm about 

 the concavity 





YOUNG OF THE GOPHER TORTOISE 



Fig. 9 Of all the land animals of the peninsula of Florida, none is more widely known than the big 

 Gopher tortoise; its history has been published in many places, while very little is known of its young. 

 The specimen here shown was collected by one of the naturalists of the United States National Museum. 

 The color of its shell is a buffy yellow. 



Europe stand among the earliest visitors to the flowers 

 of the skunk cabbage in the spring. These insects ap- 

 pear very early, and stand in need of sustenance before 

 any other of the early flowers bloom. Now, bees are, 

 as a rule, fastidious in their tastes ; but here there is no 

 choice ; it is either the foul-smelling florets of Symplo- 

 carpus or nothing. Bees probably do not care to starve 

 any more than do the rest of us. 



"But the honey-bee never en- 

 tered the skunk cabbage's cal- 

 culations, useful as the immi- 

 grant proved to be," says Neltje 

 Blanchan; "the horn that was 

 manifestly designed for smaller 

 flies often proves a fatal trap. 

 Occasionally a bee finds the 

 entrance she has managed to 

 squeeze through too narrow and 

 slippery for an exit, and she 

 perishes miserably" and then 

 sometimes a species of small 

 beetle finds its way into the 

 cavity of the spathe ; but 

 small beetles walk into all sorts 

 of places, so the finding of such 

 wanderers carries with it no 

 special significance. 



Another curious thing has 

 been noticed by those who have 

 especially studied this plant. 

 After spring is a little further 



along, it will be seen that the 

 entrances to a large number 

 of spathes, in any particular 

 swamp, have the delicate web 

 of a species of spider stretched 

 across them. It is a fat, dark- 

 colored little spider, but it pos- 

 sesses a very clear idea of what 

 it is after. It knows that, at* 

 this time of the year, many 

 tiny, black flies 

 the entrance to 

 of the spathe 

 and thus scores of them fall a 

 prey to these artful little 

 arachnids. So it will be seen 

 that in any event our skunk 

 cabbage is very sure of being 

 abundantly served every spring 

 that comes round, and its seeds 

 made absolutely certain. 



When the big> green leaves 

 of the skunk cabbage open to 

 the sun later in the season 

 though still before any other 

 spring plants are in evidence 

 the cattle, passing along by the 

 bog or marsh where they grow 

 so luxuriantly, regard them with much longing; but ex- 

 perience has impressed the fact upon these animals that, 

 tempting as the leaves are to the eye, they are bitter and 

 rank to the taste. So they are quite safe from any 

 such danger. 



Another remarkable character of the skunk cabbage 

 plant is its root. Some have a big, central rootstock, 



CRICKET FROGS (Acris grylhis) 



Fig. 10 These are the noisy little fellows we all are so familiar with during the early days of spring; 

 they stand among the most interesting little batrachians we have, and their remarkable habits mav easily 

 be studied in any good-sized terrarium. Most of the specimens are under an inch in length, whvje the 



majority caught are much less. 



