THE ARROW-LEAVED VIOLET. 



game of this sort with them. Calling them "roosters," we 

 would lock their heads together by the projecting spur into 

 which the lower petal is extended, and then pull away until one 

 or the other of the heads flew off, — the one whose head stayed 

 on being of course the victor in the contest. It always seemed 

 to me a cruel way to treat these innocent little things, for I 

 always had a feeling that somehow there was sensitive life in 

 them. But after taking our fill of this floral cock-fighting, there 

 were always enough violets left to fill our hands, as we trudged 

 away home. 



Before we turn away from the poet to find out what the 

 naturalist has to say for this beautiful flower, which is the delight 

 of childhood and old age alike, we must not miss those tender 

 and plaintive lines, in which Wordsworth twines in an immortal 

 wreath the memory of modest virtue with the modest violet. 



She dwelt among the untrodden ways 



Beside the springs of Dove, 

 A maid, whom there was none to praise, 



And very few to love. 



A violet by a mossy stone. 



Half hidden from the eye, 

 Fair as a star vi^hen only one 



Is shining in the sky. 



She lived unknown, and few could know 



When Lucy ceased to be, 

 But she is in her grave, and oh, 



The difference to me. 



Professor Meehan assures us that there is some ground for 

 supposing that the old Latin name for this flower, the same that 



