152 On the Campus 



Ah, no ! by no means. On other pages in this volume 

 we may discuss the desert; but let us here simply say 

 that the relation of plants to the world of animal life is 

 now in many cases so intimate, that plant and animal 

 have become virtually inseparable. Many insects are 

 winged flowers ; or rather many flowers have so far mim- 

 icked the forms of the gaudy insect world that we may 

 see them blooming as a swarm of resting butterflies. 

 There is no way to illustrate this fully in our northern 

 climate. The finest illustrations are in tropic lands. 

 Perhaps the most wonderful natural order of flowering 

 plants is that of the orchids ; a New York orchid show is 

 worth going far to see. One orchid has been called by 

 the less (or is it more?) reverent Spanish population of 

 this continent, ''the Holy Ghost flower"; its snowy out- 

 spread petals and extended beak simulate the form of 

 the dove, the emblem of the Spirit. This of course is 

 merest fancy; but the relation of plants and birds is 

 after all real enough. The humming-bird is surely a 

 blossom taken flight, rather is the humming-bird a per- 

 petual prisoner, once yielding to the call of beauty, now 

 bound forever in the fascination of the flowers. 



Have you ever watched a humming-bird amid the blos- 

 soms ? Did you notice him last summer and spy his 

 ways hanging upon the weigela and the lilac clusters? 

 If you did you must have been startled by the sudden- 

 ness of his apparition. All at once he hovered there; 

 you watched him for a moment, perhaps moved and 

 he was gone. Perhaps you saw what he was doing, saw 

 him flit, at least, like some swift beetle, quick from 

 flower to flower. What he did there you did not see ; he 



