SECOND WEEK] September 239 



But what of the delicate Indian pipe which gleams out 

 from the darkest aisles of the forest? If we lift up its 

 hanging head we will find a perfect flower, and its secret 

 is discovered. Traitor to its kind, it has dropped from 

 the ranks of the laurels, the heather, and the jolly little 

 wintergreens to the colourless life of a parasite, hob- 

 nobbing with clammy toadstools and slimy lichens. Its 

 common names are all appropriate, ice-plant, ghost- 

 flower, corpse-plant. 



Nevertheless it is a delicately beautiful creation, and 

 we have no right to apply our human standards of ethics 

 to these children of the wild, whose only chance of life 

 is to seize every opportunity, to make use of each hint 

 of easier existence. 



We have excellent descriptions and classifications of 

 mushrooms and toadstools (see Appendix), but of the 

 acutal life of these organisms, of the conditions of their 

 growth, little is known. Some of the most hideous are 

 delicious to our palate, some of the most beautiful are 

 certain death. The splendid red and yellow amanita, 

 which lights up a dark spot in the woods like some flower- 

 ing orchid, is a veritable trap of death. Though human 

 beings have learned the fatal lesson and leave it alone, 

 the poor flies in the woods are ever deceived by its bright- 

 ness, or odour, and a circle of their bodies upon the ground 

 shows the result of their ignorance. 



