. Strolls by starlight and sunshine;. Natural history. THE WILD GARDEN. I65 which I had never read—that the insect prisoners were not all victims, almost every pitcher disclosing one, two, or three larvae which were entirely proof against the digestive arts of the leaf, and which in reality robbed the latter of its rightful prey. These larvae I soon discovered to be those of a peculiar fly, doubtless a distinct species dependent upon the pitcher-plant, the transfor- mation being completed in the pitchers, wherein I found their chrysalides; and at length, after much search, my conjectures were
. Strolls by starlight and sunshine;. Natural history. THE WILD GARDEN. I65 which I had never read—that the insect prisoners were not all victims, almost every pitcher disclosing one, two, or three larvae which were entirely proof against the digestive arts of the leaf, and which in reality robbed the latter of its rightful prey. These larvae I soon discovered to be those of a peculiar fly, doubtless a distinct species dependent upon the pitcher-plant, the transfor- mation being completed in the pitchers, wherein I found their chrysalides; and at length, after much search, my conjectures were verified by the discovery of a newly hatched fly creeping up the dangerous tube, which had de- fied the escape of less knowing insects—an ac- complishment for which I doubt not he had been especially equipped by nature. Another conspicuous eccentricity is the Monotropa (we have been treated to the beaker, here is the pipe as well), that pallid child of the dank woods that might well pass for a fungus did we not know that it carries a flower as botanically perfect as the laurel or the pyrola or any other of the great Heath family, to which it belongs. No discourse upon our notable wild flowers would be complete without re- calling the foxglove, whose tall sprays of tubular blossoms light up many a dark nook in the woods, and whose pure, even color always suggests to me the canary, even as the cardinal- flower invariably brings another ornithological parallel. Is it not to our flowers what the scar- let tanager is to our birds? But even as the tanager must yield the crown, as it were, to the tiny kinglet whose olive crest con- ceals the crowning touch of purest red among all our native | plumage, so must the cardinal make his prettiest bow to the hum- ble painted-cup, which boasts the brightest dab of red the wild ) palette can Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - colo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
