A Window in Arcady 
pollen. All insects, however, are not strong enough to 
extract their legs from the sticky places, and then ensues 
the slow torture of hanging there until death or a help¬ 
ing hand releases them from misery. 
Under the name of Virginian swallowwort our road¬ 
side milkweed used to be, and perhaps still is, cultivated 
in English flower gardens. Besides being beautiful it could 
be quite a useful plant if we cared to develop its virtues. 
Thus its milky juice contains caoutchouc; brown sugar 
has been made from the flowers; the silky hairs of the 
seeds are serviceable in the manufacture of textile fabrics, 
as cotton is; and a fibre of good quality for ropemaking 
may be extracted from the stalk. 
July 30. —One of the most interesting phenomena of 
plant life is that of sleep. The approach of darkness 
affects many of our familiar flowers as it does the animal 
creation; they become drowsy, lose their sprightliness of 
habit and are practically out of business until morning. 
The wild oxalis folds its leaflets back to back, reminding 
one of hands folded in prayer, and the clovers are given 
to the same practice. The little yellow-flowered sensitive 
plant, common in old fields and by roadsides, huddles its 
leaflets together as though to keep them warm. Some 
flowers, like the wild rose and the poppy, close their 
petals, and some that do not shut their corollas nod on 
their stalks. 
A pretty sight of the evening is offered by the flowers 
of the fleabane—those small, daisy-like blossoms that have 
been starring the grass fields and waysides for a couple 
of months past. In these the rays stand bolt upright, 
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