ON FLORAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND COLOUR 89 



seeking. On other occasions 1 have been arrested 

 in my walk and in the midst of quite other 

 thoughts of my own or of some conversation with 

 a companion by an impelling impression that a 

 floral rarity was in my immediate neighbourhood. 

 I have noticed, too, that this seeming guidance 

 has invariably happened in connection with white 

 flowers — the white form of Rhododendron ferrugi- 

 neuiii, for instance, or of Gentiaria excisa, or of 

 Soldanella alpina, or of Viola calcarata, or of 

 Aster alpinus. It may sound preposterously mys- 

 tical, but I do really suspect that I have found 

 these uncommon or rare flowers — perhaps there 

 was only one specimen within the district for 

 miles round — by something in their nature being 

 in tune with something in mine. I do not 

 imagine success would attend upon conscious effort, 

 my own experience being that the promptings 

 have come without any striving on my part. 1 

 have had most mixed and unconvincing results 

 and many total failures when experiment has been 

 conducted upon such lines as one might follow with 

 a water-finder. I am aware that however much 

 in earnest one may be in speaking of this class of 

 phenomena, it is difficult to appear reasonable ; 

 for the matter is so wrapped in haze. I can only 



