A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 



Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky : 

 I've thought of all by turns, and still I lie 

 Sleepless." 



There is a belief as old as tradition that Nature in her mercy 

 sends the bane and the antidote side by side, and a ready remedy 

 for every ill. The bruised dock assuages the nettle's sting. " In 

 dock, out nettle !" exclaims the whimpering British lad, suiting 

 the action to the word. Thoreau, when he sprained his ankle on 

 Mount Washington, looked about him, and for the first time dis- 

 covered the Arnica at his elbow. How fortunate had it been 

 with our wakeful poet had he but realized his resources, for the 

 most confirmed victim of insomnia could hardly have repressed 

 a yawn at the sight of this land of nod beneath his window. 



The nature of the nocturnal movements and attitudes of plants, 

 both in leaves and flowers, has long been a theme of speculation 

 among botanists. In the case of many flowers the night atti- 

 tudes have been conclusively shown to have relation solely to 

 their fertilization, by insects. 



The drooping attitude of leaves at night was commonly sup- 

 posed to indicate an aversion to moisture, many plants assuming 

 the same position during rain as in the dew, thus seeming to 

 verify the conjecture ; but when the same pranks were played in 

 a cloudy day or a dewless night, the explanation had to be aban- 

 doned. In the clover tribe the nocturnal positions already de- 

 scribed seem to be assumed only in the darkness, and this invari- 

 ably, dew or no dew, while the leaves seem to revel in the rain, 

 remaining freely open. 



I doubt not that if our eyes were sharp enough they might 

 discern a certain strangeness in the nocturnal expression of every 

 plant and tree, such as is remarkably emphasized in the locust, 

 which is here pictured, and which, by -the -way, is a member of 

 that same leguminous order of plants with the clovers, especially 

 noted for the pronounced irritability of the leaves and odd noc- 

 turnal capers, and whose seeming vital consciousness has caused 

 some botanists to class them at the extremity of their system, 

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