STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
and the brown song sparrows, may be seen eagerly feasting 
on the dry seeds which still remain on the withered plants. 
Later on, in May and June, the soft gray down of the hoary 
leaves is used as lining for the nests of the humming-birds 
and other small birds that weave dainty soft cradles for 
the tiny families that need such tender care. Taught by 
unerring wisdom, each mother-bird seeks its most suitable 
material, and appropriates it for the use and comfort of its 
unknown, unseen brood. Let us not despise the common 
Mullein, for may it not remind us of Him who careth for 
the birds of the air, and giveth them from His abundant 
stores their meat in due season, and that wonderful unerring 
wisdom that we call instinct. “ Who least, hath some; who 
most, hath never all.” 
Fase FoxeLtove—Gerardia quercifolia (Pursh). 
(PLATE XII.) 
I think old Gerarde, the first English writer on the wild 
flowers and native plants of England (for whose memory 
all botanists feel a sort of veneration), would have given a 
far better description of the stately plant honored by his 
name than the writer of this little work can hope to do, 
seeing that the only native species that has come within 
her knowledge is a slender purple-flowered Gerardia, G. 
‘purpurea, which grows on the margin of Rice Lake, among 
‘wild grasses and other herbage. 
It has been said by one who was a diligent botanist and 
naturalist (the late Dr. G. G. Bird), that no Gerardias were 
found north of the Great Lakes, but all were confined to the 
Western and Eastern States; this, however, was a mistake. 
At that date very little was known of the Canadian Flora. 
It was the trying time of pioneer life in the backwoods, 
when little heed was taken of the vegetable productions of 
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