38 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
not unpalatable spinach. It is not an uncommon 
sight in spring to see some native of green Erin 
equipped with a bag or basket and a big knife, 
gathering tender dandelion tops, destined to fur- 
nish forth the frugal dinner. Our Hibernian friends 
thus circumvent Nature, and upset all her plans, 
for the dandelions were filled with bitter juice 
expressly in order that they should not be eaten. 
The precaution works well as far as gnawing rab- 
bits and moles or hungry caterpillars are con- 
cerned, for we never find dandelion roots bitten 
by rodents or tunnelled by grubs, and dandelion 
leaves are never eaten into holes such as disfigure 
the succulent foliage of the rose. Moreover, the 
plant enjoys this immunity just at a time when 
vegetable food is scarce, and the few plants which 
have ventured up are overwhelmed with attention 
from everything that is abroad, vegetarian and 
hungry. Man is the only animal who cooks his 
food, and owing to this accomplishment his bill 
of fare is far more extensive than that of his 
neighbors in feathers and fur, who take things as 
they find them. 
If we pick one of the golden dandelion flowers, 
we find that the stem is a hollow column, and 
this structure, as every engineer knows, combines 
