THE AUGUST FIELDS. 95 
From “The Compleat Angler” of Izaak Walton in 
1653 there is a long interval to “The Natural History 
of Selborne” by Gilbert White in 1789 and “Forest 
Scenery” by William Gilpin in 1791, but let us not 
suppose for a moment that the interval was a barren 
one. The “forgotten worthies” form a noble roll when 
their names are rescued from oblivion. The last fifty 
years, especially the last twenty, have been prolific in 
books of this class, and the demand has been apparently 
equal to the supply. Thoreau, Starr King, Higginson, 
Wilson Flagg, Burroughs, Torrey, Bolles are some of 
the American names, and Gosse, Kingsley, Darwin, 
Macmillan, Taylor, Hamerton, Heath, Worsley-Benison, 
Knight and Jefferies are a few of the English names 
which at once recur to the mind as preéminent among 
the writers of this class. More than ever before do the 
novelist, the traveler and the poet endeavor to paint 
with fitting words the phenomena of external Nature, as 
a setting for the thought they wish to convey. 
The August fields are rich in flowers belonging to 
the great order Composite or compound flowers. A 
few of them, like the dandelion and the daisy, bloom 
early, but most of them belong to the late summer and 
autumn. They are eminently social flowers. They 
are distinguished from simple flowers by the following 
characters: there must be flowers collected into a com- 
pound head; five anthers—occasionally four— grow- 
