146 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



successfully. They are not mere honey-suckers, as is 

 often thought, but tireless fly-catchers, a fact generally 

 unknown and probably overlooked by the Philadelphia 

 poet-naturalist, with whose lines I close : 



" Thou tiny spirit of the air, 

 With sylph-like motion, glad and free; 

 Who can thy meteor presence spare, 

 Whose childhood passed near thee? 

 For near our door thou lov'st to dip 

 Thy bill in the Bignonia's bloom 

 And of its nectar juices sip 

 'Mid summer's choice perfume." 



