224 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



wort 87 and suck their nectar as busily as though 

 they were the large and brilliant tubes of the 

 trumpet creeper or the honey-suckle. A score 

 or more of them he probed in the minute or two 

 he was before me. 'Twas along the border of 

 a dense woods where few flowers there were to 

 furnish nectar. Those of the figwort are very 

 small and unattractive, yet their supply of 

 sweets was seemingly sufficient to reward a visit 

 by the brilliant little hummer. His ruby throat 

 patch gleamed like a great jewel as he hovered 

 and hummed close by my side. Then away to 

 crofts and pastures new he went, like a dart of 

 brilliant color shot from some wood-nymph's 

 bow. 



A pebble of mica-schist I pick up from the 

 sward at my side, a small gray thing with flecks 

 of yellow glistening from its surface. How came 

 it here and when? A fragment of the earth's 

 mold a.bout me doth it comprise. And I what 

 am I? How, when and whence came I here? 

 A fragment of the earth's mold to be am I a 

 particle of flotsam which the fates have caused 

 to drift to this spot of sod whereon I sit a 

 drifting dreamer now of little more moment in 

 the universe than the pebble of schist which I 

 have ruthlessly cast aside. 



The flood plain of Raccoon is on this side but 

 about twenty feet in width, while on the other it 



87 Scrophitlaria marylandica L. 



