192 A NATURE WOOING. 



Once again I sit in the threshold of the deserted 

 cabin in the pine woods. The sensitive brier, 

 Schrarikia horridula Michx., with its prickly pros- 

 trate stems, grows in clumps around the cabin. Here 

 also are two species of handsome yellow Composite, 

 showing the full beauty of their first spring blooms. 

 The little ground doves, paired for life, run in the 

 sandy pathway which leads away from the cabin door- 

 way. The sun, master of all, shines brightly o'er me 

 as I write. 'Tis a perfect April day, mild in tempera- 

 ture, balmy of breeze. 



The field naturalist should ever seek new environ- 

 ments, look in new places, turn over new logs, pull 

 the bark from new dead snags, cast aside the gloomy 

 thoughts of what he is or what he may be, and live 

 and dream only of the sunny, joyous present. Would 

 that I could practice each day what I say unto my- 

 self, "That should I do." By turning to one side 

 and visiting a nook of these woods isolated from the 

 main tract, I have found this morning a pair of small 

 brown Tryxalid locusts, Macneillia obscura Scudd., 

 of which but four specimens, from Fort Keed, Flor- 

 ida, have heretofore been known. ISTear them I take 

 also two females of an undescribed allied form. It is 

 an EriUttiXj four-fifths of -an inch in length ; brown, 

 with an ivory white median line two mm. wide ex- 

 tending from the tip of the fastigium to the end of 

 elytra. I shall call it E. sylvestrus meaning "of the 



