172 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
March 18, 1860. I examine the skunk cab¬ 
bage now generally and abundantly in bloom 
all along under Clam-shell. It is a dowser, as it 
were, without a leaf. All that you see is a 
stout beaked hood just rising above the dead 
brown grass in the springy ground where it 
has felt the heat under some south bank. The 
single enveloping leaf or “ spathe ” is all the 
flower that you see commonly, and these are 
as variously colored as tulips, and of singular 
color, from a very dark, almost black mahogany 
to a bright yellow, streaked or freckled with 
mahogany. It is a leaf simply folded around 
the flower, with its top like a bird’s beak bent 
over it for its further protection, evidently to 
keep off wind and frost, and having a sharp 
angle down its back. These various colors are 
seen close together, and the beaks are bent in 
various directions. All along under that bank 
I heard the hum of honey bees in the air, at¬ 
tracted by this flower. Especially the hum of 
one within a spathe sounds deep and loud. 
They circle about the bud, at first hesitatingly, 
then alight and enter at the open door and 
crawl over the spadix, and reappear laden with 
the yellow pollen. What a remarkable instinct 
it is that leads them to this flower. This bee is 
said to have been introduced by the white man, 
but how much it has learned. This is almost 
