FLOWERS, BIRDS AND BUTTERFLIES. 135 



the stones on its sides and leaving their cards 

 in close proximity thereto. If they cannot eat 

 me out of house and home, they seem to be try- 

 ing to stink me out, but not as yet have they 

 succeeded. 



This afternoon I lounge about camp and 

 read. Picking up Maeterlinck's "Old Fashioned 

 Flowers" I ran across this sentence: "The 

 science of simples is dying out in the house- 

 wife's memory." This same thought I ex- 

 pressed on yesterday when I wrote "The sim- 

 plers and herbalists of a century ago have van- 

 ished as a race." Again he says, speaking of 

 the common wayside flowers; "They represent 

 in short an essential smile, an invariable 

 thought, an obstinate desire of the earth," 

 while my words were: "Their true use is to 

 decorate the crust of this old earth of ours." 

 I had never read Maeterlinck's work until this 

 afternoon, yet therein I thus found two of my 

 thoughts of yesterday. They were original with 

 each of us. 



Flowers, birds and butterflies are the three 

 things which more than all else go to make 

 charming and interesting this old woods pas- 

 ture. To the eye all are attractive, to the ear 

 the birds do cater, while to the sense of smell 

 many of the flowers are best known. Even as 

 1 write a little brown wood-nymph 48 doth flutter 



* 8 Neonympha eurytris Fab. 



