Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/46

28 a pink variety. In a multitude of books there is safety, or, if not quite that, something less of danger. The pink and the white flowers are reversions to former less highly developed states, I suppose, if certain modern theories are to be trusted. I have read somewhere that the acid of ants turns the blue of chicory blossoms to a bright red, and that European children are accustomed to throw the flowers into ant hills to watch the transformation. Perhaps some young American reader will be moved to try the experiment.

The best plants, however, those that I enjoy most for to-day, at all events, are the cat-tails. How they flourish!—"like a tree planted by the rivers of water." And how straight they grow! They must be among the righteous. We may almost say that they make the swamp. Certainly, when they are gone the swamp will be gone. Both kinds are here, the broad-leaved and the narrow-leaved, equally rank, though angustifolia has perhaps a little the better of the other in point of height. The two can be distinguished at a glance, and afar