GOLDEN-RODS. 
281 
a very common one, judging from the provision made for the 
young. But so little attention has yet been paid to entomology 
in this country, that we have not been able to discover, from any 
books within reach, what little creature it is which crowds the 
wych-Iiazel leaves in this way. 
Those excrescences made by insects are probably always inju- 
rious to the plant, the little creatures generally feeding on the 
juices of the foliage, which they often destroy ; but the tiny para- 
sitic plants of the JEcidium tribe are comparatively harmless, 
and they are frequently ornamental. 
Tuesday, 5 th . — A party of chimney-swallows w^ere seen wheel- 
ing over the highway, near the bridge, this aftenioon.* 
Wednesday, 5 th . — Delightful weather. Long walk. The Mich- 
aelmas daisies and golden-rods are blooming abundantly in the 
fields and woods. Both these common flowers enliven the au- 
tumn very much for us, growing freely as they do in all soils and 
situations, for, unlike the more delicate wild flowers of spring, they 
are not easily driven from the ground, grooving as readily in the 
fields among foreign grasses as in their native woods. By their 
profusion, their variety, and their long duration, from midsummer 
to the sharpest frosts of autumn, they console us for the disap- 
pearance of the earlier flowers, which, if more beautiful, are more 
fragile also. 
The golden-rod is a fine showy plant in most of its numerous 
forms. There are said to be some ninety varieties in North Ameri- 
ca, and about a third of these belong to our own part of the con- 
tinent, the Middle States of the Union. Of this number, one, ■with 
* These were the last swallows seen that season in our neighborhood. 
