42 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE, 



foes, its attractions and its defences, its little 

 life-history and the wider life-history of its 

 race — he would fill a whole book up with 

 what he knows about that one little neglected 

 flower ; and yet he would have found out 

 after all but a small fraction of all that could 

 be known about it, if all were ever knowable. 

 Happy days when an Admirable Crichton or 

 a Pico della Mirandola could offer to dispute 

 de omni scibili with every comer. In our 

 own degenerate times one would hardly like 

 to engage duly to describe the omne scibile of 

 a solitary little red campion. Yet the very 

 sense of this vastness makes it ridiculous pre- 

 sumption for any man to dispose of the red 

 campion altogether at a single sitting. I 

 must stop to look again at my pretty flower, 

 and to decide upon the meaning of at least 

 the most salient points in its structure and 

 arrangement. 



The campions are pinks by family, and of 

 course share all the main peculiarities of the 

 pinks generally. But the habit of the family 



