28 EYE SPY 



more so, indeed, because these latter are strangers 

 in a strange land, and divorced from their or- 

 dained insect affinities. The plebeian daisy now 

 becomes a marvel of a flower indeed — five hun- 

 dred wonderful little mechanisms packed together 

 in a single golden disk. The red clover refuses 

 to recognize us now unless properly introduced 

 by that " burly bumblebee " with which its life is 

 so strangely linked. 



The barn -yard weeds need no longer be con- 

 sidered uninteresting and commonplace, because 

 their mysteries have not yet been discovered, and 

 I can do no better in my present chapter than 

 to select one of their number and redeem it 

 from its hitherto lowly place among them — one 

 of the homeliest of them all, and whose blos- 

 soms are scarce noticed by any one except a 

 botanist. 



In my initial illustration is shown a sketch 

 of the Figwort, or scrophularia, a tall, spindling 

 weed, with rather fine, luxuriant leaves, it is true, 

 but with a tall, curiously branching spray of small, 

 insignificant purplish-olive flowers, with not even 

 a perfume, like the mignonette, to atone for its 

 plainness. But it has an odor if not a perfume, 

 and it has a nectary which secretes the beads of 

 sweets for its pet companion insects, which in this 

 instance do not happen to be bees or butterflies, 

 but most generally wasps of various kinds, as 



