A MIDNIGHT RAMBLE. 



33 



aureole verily as though some merry will-o'-the-wisp, tired of his 

 dancing, had perched him there, while other luminous spires rise 

 above the mist, or here and there hover in lambent banks be- 

 yond, or, like those throbbing fires beneath the ocean surge, 

 illume the fog with half -smothered halo. This lustrous tuft at 

 our elbow ! Let us turn our lantern upon it. Its nightly whorl 

 of lamps is already lit, save one or two that have escaped our 

 fairy in his rounds, but not for long, for the green veil of this 

 sunset bud is now rent from base to tip. The confined folded 

 petals are pressing hard for their release. In a moment more, 

 with an audible impulse, the green apex bursts asunder, and the 

 four freed sepals slowly reflex against the hollow tube of the 

 flower, while the lustrous corolla shakes out its folds, saluting the 

 air with its virgin breath. 



The slender stamens now explore the gloom, and hang their 

 festoons of webby pollen across their tips. None too soon, for 

 even now a silvery moth circles about the blossom, and settles 

 among the out-stretched filaments, sipping the nectar in tremulous 

 content. But he carries a precious token as he hies away, a 

 golden necklace, perhaps, and with it a message to yonder blos- 

 som among the alders, and thus until the dawn, his rounds di- 

 rected with a deep design of which he is an innocent instrument, 

 but which insures a perpetual paradise of primroses for future 

 sippers like himself. 



Nor is it necessary to visit the haunt of the evening primrose 

 to observe this beautiful episode. The same may be witnessed 

 almost any summer evening much nearer home, even about your 

 porch, and among city walls, heralded by those fresh, dewy whiffs 

 from the night-blooming honeysuckle, where the bright bevies of 

 blushing buds are bursting in anticipation of that " kiss which 

 harms not," as the welcome sphinx-moth, piloted by the two great 

 glowing lanterns of its eyes, hovers in the murmurous cloud of 

 its humming phantom -wings. How often have I watched these 

 mimic humming-birds in the gathering dusk, whirling about the 

 flowers, following the circuit of each fresh-blown cluster, tilting 

 and swaying in their buoyant poise above the blossom's throat, 



