28 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
invariably be found that those blossoms which open in the twi- 
‘light have adapted themselves to the crepuscular moths and other 
nocturnal insects. This finds a striking illustration in the in- 
stances of many long tubular-shaped night-blooming flowers, like 
the honeysuckle and various orchids, whose nectar is beyond the 
(yeach of any insect except the night-flying hawk-moth. It is 
true that in other less deep nocturnal flowers the sweets could 
be reached by butterflies or bees during the day if the blossoms 
‘remained open, but the night murmurers receive the first fresh 
invitation, which, if met, will leave but a wilted, half-hearted blos- 
‘som to greet the sipper of the sunshine. This beautiful expec- 
tancy of the flower determines the limit of its bloom. Thus, 
in the event of rain or other causes preventive of insect visits, 
the evening primrose will remain open for the butterflies during 
the following day, when otherwise it would have drooped per- 
ceptibly, and extended but a listless welcome. I have seen this 
fact strikingly illustrated in a spray of mountain-laurel, whose 
blossoms lingered in expectancy nearly a week in my parlor, 
when the flowers on the parent shrub in the woods had fallen 
several days before, their mission having been fulfilled. In the 
house specimens the radiating stamens remained in their pockets 
in the side of the blossom cup, and seemed to brace the corolla 
upon its receptacle. These stamens are naturally dependent upon 
insect agency for their release, and the consequent discharge of 
pollen, and I noticed that when this operation was artificially con- 
summated the flower-cup soon dropped off or withered. 
Coleridge told only half the truth, and that without knowing it 
—and something of a libel besides—in the lines of his poem “ No 
Life Vain "— 
“The very shadow of an insect’s wing, 
For which the violet cared not while it staid, 
Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing ”— 
for that brief period perhaps compassed the dream and consum- 
mation of our violet’s life. There is a similar negative recogni- 
tion of a beautiful harmony in nature in Shelley’s allusion to those 
