192 DATS OUT OF DOORS. 



stemon, the flower blooming late in August as freely as 

 ever in June. Equally marked, but ■with less apparent 

 reason, was the second flowering of marsh marigolds, 

 which gilded a long strip of marsh during the last 

 weeks of August as brilliantly as they had done four 

 months before. Stress should not be laid, however, upon 

 plants blooming " out of season." Here on the meadows, 

 protected by the high terrace that surrounds them from 

 the north winds, plants know no seasons, or respect none, 

 as they do upon the upland fields. Dandelions, bluets, 

 and violets, of the better known flowers, have been found 

 in bloom every month in the year. 



There is an important lesson to be learned from such 

 a summer as the one now waning — a lesson that has not 

 been taught by those who lecture upon zoology; a lesson 

 not laid down in the text-books — ^the want of fixity of 

 habit. Usually, in our natural histories, after a description 

 of an animal is given, there is a paragraph, perhaps a 

 dozen, on the habits of the animal, and these are detailed 

 in such a way that one gets the idea that the creature 

 referred to is a sort of machine. That it comes and goes, 

 eats, drinks, and sleeps, in precisely the same manner, day 

 in and day out, and once you have seen it you have seen 

 it forever. 



This mathematical regularity is .often dwelt upon as 

 characteristic of bird migration, but it does not hold 

 good ; and again of nesting habits, but the past summer 

 contradicts it ; and so through every phase of bird life ; it 

 can be shown that while any given species will prove 

 much the same bird, year after year, if the seasons are 

 similar, it needs but little change to bring about all the 

 difPerences, especially in nesting habits, such as I have 

 described as observed during the close of the summer. 



Another phase of the subject may be touched upon — 

 the close relationship between various forms of animal life, 



