Part 2

"Oh, those were good old times, with all I wanted to eat all the time, and everything I ate turning to appetite! Too soon, too soon I found myself getting drowsy again, and, I can only remember awakening from a queer dream, to find even my six tiny legs gone, and, what is _worse_, my _mouth_ also. While wondering and hoping that this was but a troubled vision, I was plunged into sleep again, and dreamed that I was locked up in a mummy-case for over a week. And now comes the end, the cycle of my story. From this nightmare mummy-case I finally awoke--awoke, and emerged as you now see me. Do you wonder that I have had the blues ever since at the memory of those honeyed days, now forever fled? Instead of sporting aloft in airy skyward flights, I am now a miserable groundling. Instead of sweet, fragrant bread of flowers, I am now forced to break my fast on acrid buttercup leaves. But I shall live again, with joys several hundred times multiplied, live again in my children, for whose jolly time in the autumn I shall soon lay my plans--golden promises--here in the ground beneath the buttercup leaves, close to a burrow where lives a burly bumblebee.

"But I have not told you all of my history, and will leave you to fill in the blank spaces, even as some of the scientists have to do."

Fox-fire

The most recent experience of my own with the mysterious fox-fire occurred a short time ago in a homeward drive with a companion from a botanizing expedition about twelve miles distant. It was near ten o'clock. The sky was overcast, only a stray star of the first magnitude now and then peeping out from between the rifts of hazy floating clouds. The new moon, "wi' th' auld moon i' her arm," had sunk below the western hills, and so dark had it become that the road ahead, at best but a faint suggestion, was occasionally lost for minutes together in the deepened gloom of the overhanging trees, only the keener nocturnal vision of the trusted horse affording the slightest hope of keeping in the wheel-tracks.

In one of these dark passages we were suddenly surprised by a gleam of light a few rods ahead to the left, and in a moment more we were directly abreast of it. On many previous night-journeys I had been on the lookout for some such surprise as this, as yet only rewarded by the tiny sparkle of the glowworm in the grass. But here, at last, it came in a shape that I could not have anticipated--an upright column of phosphorescence, brilliant at the upper extremity, and more broken below for a space of several feet. The brilliancy of the light may be inferred from the following query and its answer:

"What is that light yonder?" I asked my companion.

"A lantern reflected in water," was his reply.

The mass of light shone verily like a lantern, and the present interpretation was somewhat reminiscent of a previous flickering lantern which we had seen, with its accompaniment of great magnified moving shadows on barn and hay-stack, as it assisted in the tardy chores of a whistling farmer lad.

But this light was of a greenish, ghostly hue, and perfectly motionless, and had withal a certain weird, uncanny glare, which belongs alone to fox-fire. It was impossible to locate its distance from us. It might as easily be one rod as five. I concluded to investigate its source, and, groping my way through the dewy bushes, soon confronted it. It seemed to glow with added brilliancy as I approached it, and as I stood face to face within a few inches of it no vestige of material surface appeared to sustain it; it seemed hanging motionless in mid-air. I reached out my hand, which momentarily intervened like a black silhouette against the glow, with which it soon came in contact. Upon further investigation, this proved to be the contact of a mere prosaic fence-post, which, for some mysterious reason, had been singled out for glorification among the ten thousand others of its neighbors and transformed into a pillar of fire. The post was about six inches in diameter, its summit an unbroken mass of light, which extended in more or less broken patches below for a distance of six feet, thus suggesting the effect of the rippling elongated reflection of a lantern in water noticed by my companion, and which would doubtless have been so accepted by the average passing observer without further thought.

The most luminous upper portions were free from bark, the exposed patches of wood below being equally brilliant. Clutching at the more available part of the post, I was enabled to sink my fingers deep into its decayed fibre, and succeeded in tearing off a long fragment. The outer surface of this particular piece had been covered with bark and not especially brilliant, but the cavity of yielding moist fibre thus exposed, as well as the inner surface of the dislodged piece, poured forth a perfect flood of greenish light, indicating that the damp uncanny fire extended to the very core of the post, which was saturated with the phosphorescent essence. I laid this and other fragments in the back of the carriage, where its glare met our eyes whenever we turned to look upon it.

Taking it beneath the lamp-light upon our return home, it resolved itself into a very ordinary piece of yellowish rotten wood. In a more shaded corner of the room it appeared as though white-washed, and upon taking it into a closet or out into the night again its flame gradually rekindled, as though feeding upon the darkness, until it appeared precisely as when we found it.

By enclosing the specimen in a tin box with moist moss I was enabled to prolong the effulgence until the next evening, but it had entirely disappeared by the following night, at which time its original haunt, the post, was also doubtless lost in the darkness. A week later I again passed its neighborhood in the late hours without the slightest hint of its presence.

This is the mysterious "fox-fire" or "ghost-fire" which has so imposed upon the imaginations of credulous country folk the world over, doubtless a conspicuous factor in many a harrowing tale in the legendary or traditional lore of spooks and goblins.

I remember the breathless interest with which as a boy I listened to the weird story, whose scene was located not far from my native town, of a ghostly light that flickered about the eaves of a certain old ruin of a house in the neighborhood, and also above the well close by in the weedy waste of the former door-yard.

The light was seen by many for several consecutive nights. It fairly glowed into a halo up from the wooden curb which surmounted the well, where it was viewed at a safe distance with bated breath by a curious crowd of villagers, not one of whom would have dared to steal up and surprise the innocent spook in its haunt--doubtless a mass of fox-fire which had found its brief, congenial home in the decaying boards within the tottering well-curb. Of course the house was "haunted" for evermore, and rustic tradition for a whole generation was rich in fabulous tales of the "haunted well," and there was serious talk of unearthing the nameless mystery which lay at the bottom of it.

A certain saw-mill was also tenanted by a similar luminous ghost one night after a heavy rain, but the shape of the spook in this case was so peculiar, and so exactly corresponded with the parallel cross-boxes of the old broken water-wheel, that it was considered harmless.

But it is scarcely to be wondered at that a phenomenon so startling and inexplicable to the rustic mind should be associated with the supernatural. One's first experience with fox-fire, especially if he chances upon a specimen of some size, is apt to be a memorable incident.

My own first encounter dates back to the age of about eight years. While walking through a wood at night I chanced upon what I supposed to be a large glowworm in my path. I picked it up, only to find in my hand a hard piece of dead twig.

A later experience, which, while quite startling for a moment, was robbed of its full terrors by the reminiscence of the first. As in the former case, I was returning home at night through a dark, damp wood. I was skirting the border of a small runnel, when I was suddenly brought to a breathless standstill, apparently confronted by the glaring eyes of a panther, or perhaps a tiger; certainly no cat or fox or owl was possessed of eyes of such dimensions or wide interspace as those which glared at me from the dark shadow of yonder copse. But in a moment my quickened pulse had subsided, and I calmly returned the greenish phosphorescent gaze, observing that a singular accident had re-enforced the first illusion by a wonderful semblance to ears and outline of body, in keeping with the formidable eyes.

In a moment I was attacking the foe, my hands stroking his rough barky forehead, and my fingers penetrating his eyes, which proved to be two holes in the bark of a fallen log, the farther side of which disclosed a brilliant, luminous patch which, as I invaded it with my hand, proved to be bare, exposed wood. Taking hold of the loose bark, a vigorous pull dislodged a great piece some three feet long, at the same time liberating a glare of greenish light from the exposed surface of the log, which was responded to in sympathy by the inner surface of the slab of bark in my hands, in all representing about six square feet of brilliant phosphorescence.

I carried a fragment home, and upon inspecting it by lamp-light, found it white with thready mould, resembling the so-called "dry-rot" of mouldy timber--doubtless the mother of some well-known fungus, or "toadstool," which might have been discerned upon the log the following day had I chanced thither.

Hawthorne in one of his books records a remarkable personal encounter with this weird fox-fire, and one which cost him dearly. He was on a journey by canal-boat, which had stopped _en route_ for a brief period at midnight. During the interval he had stepped ashore, and was decoyed into a neighboring wood by the bright glow, which proved to be a fallen tree ablaze with phosphorescence.

In his surprise and interest he lost all account of time, and thus missed his boat, and was obliged to "foot it" for miles on the midnight tow-path, which he was enabled to do by the aid of a big brand of the tree which he used as a flambeau.

Almost any damp wood, especially after a rain, is likely to disclose its fox-fire, but it occasionally appears under circumstances where we little expect it. A few weeks since, having occasion to go to my refrigerator after dark, I noticed a brilliant glowing object upon the floor beneath it, which I found upon inspection to be merely a piece of damp bread. Can it be that the yeast fungus too may give off effulgence with its carbonic acid at its whim? or was the light traceable to the perceptible odor of lobster with which it had evidently been previously in contact?

Dead fish are frequently thus luminous, and brilliant phosphorescence is often an accompaniment of decomposition of both animal and vegetable matter. A few decaying potatoes will often light up a corner of a cellar which is dim by daylight, and an instance is on record of a certain cellar full of these vegetables giving off such a flood of light as to lead observers to suppose that the premises were on fire.

Many animals, and especially fishes and insects, possess luminous properties. The familiar examples of the glowworm and fire-fly hardly need be mentioned. Then there are the big lantern-flies, with their luminous heads; and brilliant snapping beetles of the South, with their two glowing headlights, so effectively employed as ornaments for the hair and otherwise in the toilet of the Cuban belle. But the sea is the home of luminous life. From the diminutive myriads of the _noctiluca_, which sets the sea aflame, to the numerous larger finny tribes, the ocean is peopled with animal life, which, though dwelling in depths scarce reached by the faintest gleam from the sun, swim about enveloped in their self-illumined halo.

While all these phenomena come under the general term of phosphorescence, the inference of the presence of phosphorus is incorrect; many substances without a trace of phosphorus in their constitution emit light with equal brilliancy.

The well-known commercial article called "luminous paint" is an apt example, which, while containing no trace of phosphorus, glows like fox-fire at night, especially after having been exposed to the sun's rays during the day, giving forth in the dark hours the light which it has thus absorbed, and being thus of utility in its application to clock faces and match-boxes.

Calcined lime and burnt oyster-shells, in combination with certain acids, become luminous at night by the similar power of absorption and transmission of light vibration which is supposed to be the secret of much of the so-called phosphorescence.

But fox-fire is believed to be of a different nature, more chemical in its character, and usually emanates from a fungus, either visible in the form of mould or toadstool, or existing as an almost invisible essence which saturates the decaying wood, a species known as _Thelaphora cerulea_ being credited with most of the luminous manifestations.

Fox-fire is occasionally put to a cruel utility by hunters in association with the "salt-lick" for deer. Salt is scattered in a selected spot, and a piece of fox-fire adjusted beyond it in direct line of the aim of the rifle, which is securely fixed in place. The sudden obscuration of the light is a sufficient signal for the still-hunter, who has only to pull the trigger to secure the game, even though the latter be entirely hid in the darkness.

The more common examples of fox-fire are small bits of decayed wood, but most astonishing specimens have been observed. In addition to the fine example mentioned by Hawthorne, there is an authentic record of a single log twenty-four feet in length and a foot in diameter which was one mass of brilliant phosphorescence.

A Homely Weed with Interesting Flowers

The recent article from my pen on the "Riddle of the Bluets," and which showed the important significance of its two forms of blossoms, suggests that a few more similar expositions of the beautiful mysteries of the common flowers which we meet every day in our walks, and which we claim to "know" so well, may serve to add something to the interest of our strolls afield. It is scarcely fair to assert that familiarity can breed contempt in our relations to so lovely an object as a flower, but certain it is that this every-day contact or association, especially with the wild things of the wood, meadow, and way-side, is conducive to an apathy which dulls our sense to their actual attributes of beauty. Many of these commonplace familiars of the copse and thicket and field are indeed like voices in the wilderness to most of us. We forget that the "weed" of one country often becomes a horticultural prize in another, even as the mullein, for which it is hard for the average American to get up any enthusiasm, and which is tolerated with us only in a worthless sheep pasture, flourishes in distinction in many an English or Continental garden as the "American velvet plant."

The extent of our admiration often depends upon the relative rarity of the flower rather than upon its actual claims to our appreciation. The daisy which whitens our meadows--the "pesky white-weed" of the farmer--we are perfectly willing to see in the windrows of the scythe or tossed in the air by the fork of the hay-maker. The meed of our appreciation of the single blossom becomes extremely thin when spread over a ten-acre lot. How rarely do we see a bouquet of daisies on a country table? And yet, strange inconsistency! the marguerite of our goodwife's window-garden, almost identical with the daisy and not one whit prettier, is a prize, because it came from the "florist's," and cost twenty-five cents, with five cents extra for the pot.

A certain thrifty granger of the writer's acquaintance was recently converted from the error of his attitude towards the "tarnal weeds and brush." He was one of the tribe of blind, misguided vandals who had always deemed it his first duty "after hayin'" to invade with his scythe all the adjacent roadside, to "tidy things up," reducing to most unsightly untidiness that glorious wild garden of August's floral cornucopia, that luxuriant tangle of purple eupatorium, the early asters, golden-rod, vervains, wild-carrot, and meadow-rue.

He was converted in the sanctuary, where one August Sabbath he beheld by the side of the pulpit, dignified by a large, beautiful vase, a great bouquet of this very tall, purple thoroughwort, meadow-rue, and wild-carrot of his abomination, and which had actually fallen before his scythe on the evening previous. "Well, there!" he exclaimed; "I didn't realize they _was_ so pretty!"

The beauty of the commonplace often requires the aid of the artist as its interpreter, a fact which Browning realized when he expressed, through Fra Lippo Lippi:

"We're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things which we have passed Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see."

An illustration of the truth of this axiom was afforded in a recent incident in my experience. Sitting at the open window of my country studio one summer day, engaged in making a portrait of a common weed, a friendly farmer, chancing "across lots," seeing me at work, sauntered up to "pass the time o' day." As he leaned on the window-sill his eye fell upon the drawing before me.

"My!" he exclaimed, "but ain't that pooty?"

"What!" I retorted, "and will _you admit_ that this drawing of a _weed_ is pretty?"

"Yes, your _draft_ thar is pooty, but you artist fellows alliz makes 'em look pootier 'n they _ought_ to."

So much for the mere attributes of manifest outward beauty without regard to consideration of "botany" or the structural beauty of the flowers. The "botanist" finds beauty everywhere, even among the homeliest of Flora's hosts. But in the light of the "new botany," which recognizes the insect as the important affinity of the flower--the key to its various puzzling features of color, form, and fragrance--every commonest blossom which we thought we had "known" all our lives, and every homely weed scarce worth our knowing, now becomes a rebuke, and offers us a field of investigation as fresh and promising as is offered by the veriest rare exotic of the conservatory; more so, indeed, because these latter are strangers in a strange land, and divorced from their ordained insect affinities. The plebeian daisy now becomes a marvel of a flower indeed--five hundred wonderful little mechanisms packed together in a single golden disk. The red clover refuses to recognize us now unless properly introduced by that "burly bumblebee" with which its life is so strangely linked.

The barn-yard weeds need no longer be considered uninteresting and commonplace, because their mysteries have not yet been discovered, and I can do no better in my present chapter than to select one of their number and redeem it from its hitherto lowly place among them--one of the homeliest of them all, and whose blossoms are scarce noticed by any one except a botanist.

In my initial illustration is shown a sketch of the Figwort, or scrophularia, a tall, spindling weed, with rather fine, luxuriant leaves, it is true, but with a tall, curiously branching spray of small, insignificant purplish-olive flowers, with not even a perfume, like the mignonette, to atone for its plainness. But it has an _odor_ if not a perfume, and it has a nectary which secretes the beads of sweets for its pet companion insects, which in this instance do not happen to be bees or butterflies, but most generally wasps of various kinds, as these insects are not so particular as to the quality of their tipple as bees are apt to be. But the figwort has found out gradually through the ages that _wasps_ are more serviceable in the cross-fertilization of its flowers than other insects, and it has thus gradually modified its shape, odor, and nectar especially to these insects.

Let us then take a careful look at these queer little homely flowers, and for the time being consider them as mere devices--first, to insure the visit of an insect, and, second, to make that insect the bearer of the pollen from one blossom to the stigma of another. Here we see a flower with three distinct welcomes on three successive days.

The flower-bud usually opens in the morning, and shows a face as at A, which must be fully understood by looking at the side section shown at A^1.

The anthers and pollen are not yet ripe, but the stigma is ready, and now guards the doorway. To-morrow morning we shall see a new condition of things at that doorway, as seen at B and B^1. The stigma has now bent down out of the way, while two anthers have unfolded on their stalks and now shed their pollen at the threshold. The third morning, or perhaps even sooner, the other pair come forward, and we see the opening of the blossom as at C. Blossoms in all these three conditions are to be found on this cluster.

A small wasp is now seen hovering about the flowers, and we must turn our attention to him as seen in Figs. 1, 2, and 3. The insect alights, we will assume, on a blossom of the second day (Fig. 1), clinging with all his feet, and thrusting his tongue into the beads of nectar shown at A^1 and B^1. He now brings his breast or thorax, or perhaps the underside of his head against the pollen, and is thoroughly dusted with it. Leaving the blossom, we see him in flight, as at Fig. 2, and very soon he is seen to come to a freshly opened flower, which he sips as before. The pollen is thus pushed against the projecting stigma, as shown at Fig. 3, and thus, one by one, the flowers are cross-fertilized.

The stigma, after receiving pollen, immediately bends downward and backward, as shown in B^1, to give place to the ripening anthers, and shortly after the last pair of them have shed their pollen the blossom, having then fulfilled its functions, falls off, as shown at D. This may be on the afternoon of the third day, or not until the fourth. If not visited by insects it may chance to remain the longer time; but more than one tiny wasp gets his head into such a blossom, and is surprised with a tumble, his weight pulling the blossom from its attachment.

The result of that pollen upon the stigma is quickly seen in the growing ovary or pod, which enlarges rapidly on the few succeeding days, as in E.

Many species of hornets and wasps, large and small, are to be seen about the figwort blooms, occasionally bees, frequently bumblebees, which usually carry away the pollen on the underside of their heads.

Who shall any longer refer to the figwort as an "uninteresting weed"?

Two Fairy Sponges