Music of the Wild 



pfi-een leaves, and unusually large pale lavender 

 flo^^ers of much grace and beauty. 



Tlie blooms are a trumpet-shaped corolla, with 

 Uvo escallo])s turning up and three down. There 

 Beard- is a stameu, covered with long liairs, and fertilized 

 tongue ),^, ^^^^ pollen it gathers from tlie do^\'n of visiting 

 butterflies and bees. From this organ the 2:)lant 

 takes its name, beard-tongue. JNIany people un- 

 acquainted with a natural growth gathered and 

 ^\ere enthusiastic over it at the height of a fence. 

 It ^\as Aery beautiful l)ordering grain fields, no- 

 M'here more so tluni around the oats where this 

 study was made. 



While birds and insects hover over these old 

 snake-fences, the squirrels race along them and 

 frightened cotton-tails sail Ijetween the rails like 

 skilled acrobats. Rabbits burrow their nests in 

 grain fields and pastures, and beside the fences 

 imder the cover of bottom rails and stumps of dead 

 trees. Close har\'est time their young appear. 

 ]Mere youth and helplessness make its appeal. 

 The nestlings of song birds are ugly, naked little 

 creatures, blind, and agape. But again, some 

 ground builders — the quail, rail, and many water 

 birds — are able to travel on leaving their shells, and 

 are irresistible balls of fluff. Xewly-born rabbits 

 and sfjuirrels are blind and unattractive, but when 

 led forth to sup]:)ort themselves are beautiful and 

 trustingly innocent. A few days' contact with the 



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