8 RIVERBY 



He narrowed his vision, and such an expression 

 of surprise and delight as came over his face ! A 

 group of a dozen or more of the plants, some of 

 them twin-flowered, were there almost within reach, 

 the first he had ever seen, and his appreciation of 

 the scene, visible in every look and gesture, was 

 greatly satisfying. In the fall he came and moved 

 a few of the plants to a tamarack swamp in his own 

 vicinity, where they throve and bloomed finely for a 

 few years, and then for some unknown reason failed. 



Nearly every June, my friend still comes to feast 

 his eyes upon this queen of the cypripediums. 



While returning from my first search for the 

 lady's-slipper, my hat fairly brushed the nest of the 

 red-eyed vireo, which was so cunningly concealed, 

 such an open secret, in the dim, leafless underwoods, 

 that I could but pause and regard it. It was sus- 

 pended from the end of a small, curving sapling; 

 was flecked here and there by some whitish sub- 

 stance, so as to blend it with the gray mottled boles 

 of the trees; and, in the dimly lighted ground-floor 

 of the woods, was sure to escape any but the most 

 prolonged scrutiny. A couple of large leaves formed 

 a canopy above it. It was not so much hidden as it 

 was rendered invisible by texture and position with 

 reference to light and shade. 



A few summers ago T struck a new and beauti- 

 ful plant in the shape of a weed that had only re- 

 cently appeared in that part of the country. I was 

 walking through an August meadow when I saw, on 

 a little knoll, a bit of most vivid orange, verging on 



