Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/67

 herbage beneath. While I watched them two of these, half-grown Holstein heifers, bounded friskily to the hard turf of the cedar-guarded pasture above and raced in a satyr-like romp over the close turf and among the cedars for a time. It was as if they knew that Corydon had just vanished up that roadside in Arcady in pursuit of the maiden that the Pilgrim described to him, and the valley was free from all supervision for a time. The white spikes of bloom on the water-*plantain nodded to let them pass, and nodded again as if they too knew why the satyrs frisked and on what errand the shepherd had gone.

Daintiest of embodied thoughts which flit along this sequestered valley are the butterflies. This is their feasting time of year, for now the milkweed blooms hang crowded umbels of sticky sweetness that no honey-loving insect can resist. Commonest of these by the brookside is Asclepias cornuti with its large pale leaves and its dull greenish-purplish flowers. It is rather odd that out of the same brook water and the salts and humus in the black earth through which it flows one plant should grow these dull, heavy, loutish flowers,