The Music of the Marsh 



egret hunters, who take the hfe of tlie broochng 

 bird for a few beautiful feathers found on the 

 shoulders only at nesting-time, and leave the young 

 to slow death from starvation. 



When plume-decked women chide you for tak- 

 ing a moderate amoimt of game in season, tell 

 them this egret story. Tell them, too, how tlie 

 grebes are caught l)}"- hand, because they will not 

 Hj; and how the skin of the throat is cut with nip- 

 l^ers and ripped to the vent of the living bird, which 

 is then left to die as it may in its chosen location 

 among the grasses, rushes, and blue flags of the 

 marsh border. 



Here is a cloying sweetness that insures an un- 

 usually strong insect chorus, attracted first to the 

 bkie flags. Tliese flowers, l)orne singly upon slen- The 

 der, upright stems, are of complicated arrangement B'u'^Fiag 

 in their hearts, so they were given a far-reaching 

 sweetness that manj^ visitors might be lured to 

 them and thus accomplish their cross-fertilization. 

 They have three curving, graceful petals curling 

 back, of many tinted purplish shades; three up- 

 right i:)ale-blue ones inside them, much smaller in 

 size, and a complicated arrangement of pistil and 

 fringy anthers in their hearts, that touches the 

 bloom with gold. These anthers are designed es- 

 pecially to catch the pollen of their kind, carried 

 on the backs of bees, so that, even if the plants 

 can not reach each other, their species is perpetu- 



397 



