106 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



example of that extraordinary power of retaining the results 

 of minute observation which made my father unique 

 among the naturalists of his time, and to find a parallel to 

 which it was then necessary to go back to Gilbert White of 

 Selborne : — 



"On September 5, 1837, I and my brother visited the 

 " Bois Brule. We went up by Bradley's Brook, and on 

 "the bank I found a new thistle, with crenated leaves. 

 "The first quarter of a mile lay through a very rough 

 " slash, where we had to climb over the fallen trees and 

 " through the limbs ; and, to make it worse, these were 

 "concealed by the tall wickup* plants with which the 

 "ground was absolutely covered, and as the seed-pods were 

 "just bursting, every movement dispersed clouds of the 

 " light cottony down, which getting into our mouths and 

 "nostrils, caused us great inconvenience. Presently we 

 "descended the steep bank, and walked, or rather 

 " scrambled, up the rocky bed of the stream by means 

 " of the stones which were above water, though, as they 

 "were wet and slimy, we occasionally wetted our feet. 

 " Thus we went on, sometimes in the stream, sometimes 

 " among the alders and underwood on the banks, for 

 " about a mile and a half. I met with many specimens of 

 " fruits and seeds which I had not [found] before, espe- 

 " daily the orange cup-flower, the handsome scarlet fruits 

 " of the white and the red death, bright blue berries, etc. 

 " In pressing through the brush, I got my clothes be- 

 " daubed with a nasty substance, which I discovered to 

 " proceed from thousands of the ApJiis lanigera, which 

 " I had crushed. They were so thickly clustered round 

 " the alder branches as to make a solid mass, half an 

 " inch thick, covered with ragged filaments of white 



* Or " wickaby," the leather-plant {Dirca palustris), a shrub common in 

 the Canadian woods, and covered in spring with small yellow blossoms. 



