302 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



X. 



While tramping through woodland, field and 

 meadow in search of "first hand" knowledge, I often 

 think of the many riches possessed hy the farmer's 

 son which he wots not of. His father's fields have 

 thousands of tenants which he never sees. In their 

 proper season wild flowers of brilliant hue and delight- 

 ful odor bloom all about him yet are passed unnoticed. 

 Every corner of the old Virginia rail fences holds 

 countless treasures of brilliantly colored insects, yet 

 he knows only the six or eight species of homely ones 

 which are especially injurious to his father's crops. 

 In the proper season the orchards and woodlands on 

 the old homestead are full of sweet singing warblers 

 and vireos whose notes and plumage may be, for the 

 time being, all his own ; yet he sees and hears them 

 not. The rainbow darter and its cousin, the green- 

 sided darter, swim up and down the ripples of the 

 brook which flows through the wood's pasture of his 

 country home, yet the sunlight which they reflect from 

 their gilded sides ne'er strikes the eyes of the farmer's 

 boy. If I possess treasures I wish to know it and not 

 pass my life surrounded by them and yet in continual 

 ignorance of their presence. 



How many of my readers, for example, whether 

 reared in country or city, have ever seen a cross-bill 

 alive ? I lived upon a farm until I was of age and did 

 not know that such a bird existed although it was 

 probably found every winter within a mile of my 

 home. 



