38 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



less this little creature on the morn of its natal 

 day. The mother and the father! One never 

 realizes how much the offspring is dependent 

 upon them, even after they have brought it into 

 being, until one sees the feebleness, the utter 

 helplessness of a nestling such as this or of a 

 blind and naked mouse in the first few hours 

 of its earthly sojourn. 



At nine o'clock my allotted task of hunting 

 has been completed and again I rest beside the 

 boulders. From four miles and more away 

 I hear the whistle of a locomotive and rejoice 

 that this day it will be no nearer. The hours 

 are before me, free, untouched, unplanned a 

 margin broad as the day that remaineth to be 

 my very own. The clouds have tempered the 

 atmosphere to my liking. On such a day, in 

 such a place, one grows old slowly. 



The prostrate spurges which one often sees 

 along or in the pathways cling closely to the 

 bosom of the mother earth. During their en- 

 tire lives their stems and leaves and branches 

 hug close her form, cover her naked places. 

 Several of them, as the spotted spurge 14 and 

 the hairy spreading spurge, 15 have numerous 

 slender branches which radiate out from a com- 

 mon base, thus forming a pretty, circular leafy 

 mat. Others which grow half erect have one 

 principal branch with many side shoots. The 



i* Euphorbia maculata L. M Euphorbia humistrata Engl. 



