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 pa.s.sed Perhaps a hundred times, nor cared to see."
An ill.u.s.tration 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 "pa.s.s 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 b.u.mblebee" 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. .h.i.therto 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A. First Day"s Welcome--Stigma at the Doorway.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: A^1. First Day--Sectional View.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: B. Second Day"s Welcome--Stigma bent downward beneath two withered Stamens at Doorway.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: B^1. Second Day--Sectional View.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: C. Third Day"s Welcome.--Four Stamens at Doorway.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: D. Fourth Day.--Fall of Blossom. Its Mission fulfilled.]
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 cl.u.s.ter.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1]
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 a.s.sume, 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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3]
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: E]
Many species of hornets and wasps, large and small, are to be seen about the figwort blooms, occasionally bees, frequently b.u.mblebees, 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
The pretty works of my fairy and his companions in mischief are seen on every hand from spring until winter, but few of us have ever seen the fay, for Puck is no myth nor Ariel a creature of the poet"s fancy.
Their prototype existed in entomological ent.i.ty and demoralizing mischievousness ages before the traditional fay, in diminutive human form, had been dreamed of. The quaint, bow-legged little "brownies,"
which have brought our entire land beneath the witching spell of their drollery, can scarce claim prestige in the ingenuity of their mischief, nor can the droll doings of imps and elves chronicled in the folk-lore of many an ancient people begin to match the actual doings of the real, live, busy little fairy whose works abound in meadow, wood, and copse, and which any of us may discover if we can once be brought to realize that our imp is visible. Then we must not forget that ideal type of the true "fairy"--a paragon of beauty and goodness, with golden hair and dazzling crown of brilliants, with her airy costume of gossamer begemmed and spangled, her dainty, twinkling feet and gorgeously painted b.u.t.terfly wings. And we all remember that wonderful wand which she carried so gracefully, and whose simple touch could evoke such a train of surprising consequences.
And who shall say that our pretty fay is a myth, or her magic wand a wild creation of the fancy? May we not see the wonder-workings of that potent wand on every hand, even though our fairy has eluded us while she cast the spell? There are a host of these wee fairies continually flitting about among the trees plotting all sorts of mischief and leaving an astonishing witness of their visitation in their trail as they pa.s.s from leaf to leaf or twig to twig. But these fairies, like those of Grimm and Laboulaye, are agile little atoms, and are not to be caught in their pranks if they know it, and even though our eye chanced to rest on one of them, it is doubtful whether we would recognize him, so different is the guise of these _real_ fairies from those invented creatures of the books. Once, when a mere boy, I caught one of the little imps at work, and watched her for several minutes without dreaming that I had been looking at a real fairy all this time. What did I see? I was sitting in a clearing, partly in the shade of a sapling growth of oak which sprang from the trunk of a felled tree. While thus half reclining I noticed a diminutive, black, wasp-like insect upon one of the oak leaves close to my face.
The insect seemed almost stationary, and not inclined to resent my intrusion, so I observed her closely. I soon discovered that she was inserting her sting into the midstem of the leaf, or perhaps withdrawing it therefrom, for in a few moments the midge flew away. I remember wondering what the insect was trying to do, and not until years later did I realize that I had been witnessing the secret arts of the magician of the insect world--a very Puck or Ariel, as I have said--a fairy with a magic wand which any sprite in elfindom might covet.
The wand of Herrmann never wrought such a wonder as did this magic touch of the little black fly upon the oak leaf. Had I chanced to visit the spot a few weeks later, what a beautiful red-cheeked apple could I have plucked from that hemst.i.tched leaf!
This was but one of a veritable swarm of mischief-making midges everywhere flitting among the trees; and while they are quite as various in their shapes as the traditional forms of fairies--the ouphes and imps, the gnomes and elves of quaintest mien, as well as the dainty fays and sylphs and sprites--there is one feature common to them all which annihilates the ideal of all the pictorial authorities on fairydom. Neither Grimm, nor Laboulaye, nor any of the masters of fairy-lore, seems to have discovered that a fairy has no right to those b.u.t.terfly wings which the pages of books show us. Those of the real fairy are quite different, being narrow and gla.s.sy, and bear the magician"s peculiar sign in their crisscross veins.
What a world of mischief is going on here in the fields! Here is one of the witching sprites among the drooping blossoms of the oak. "You would fain be an acorn," she says, as she pierces the tender blossoms with her wand, "but I charge thee bring forth a string of currants;"
and immediately the blossoms begin to obey the behest, and erelong a mimic string of currants droops upon the stem. Upon another tender branch near by a jet-black, gauze-winged elf is casting a similar spell, which is this time followed by a tiny, downy, pink-cheeked peach. And here alights a tiny sprite, whose magic touch evokes even from the _same_ leaf a cherry, or a coral bead, perhaps a huge green apple! How many of us have seen the little elf that spends her life among the tangles of creeping cinque-foil, and decks its stems with those brilliant scarlet beads which we may always find upon them, looking verily like tempting berries.
We see here about us swarms of these busy elves in obedience to their own peculiar mischievous promptings. What whispers this glittering midge to the oak twig here to which she clings so closely? We may not guess; but if we pa.s.s this way a month or so hence, what a beautiful response in the glistening, rosy-clouded sponge which encircles the stem! "But this sponge is not pretty enough by half," exclaims a rival fairy. "Wait until you see what yonder sweetbrier rose will do for _me_." Hovering thither among its thorns, she imparts her spell, and, lo! within a month the stem is clothed in emerald fringe, which grows apace, until it has become a dense pompon of deep crimson--a sponge worthy the toilet of the fairy queen herself!
Who shall still say that the fairy is a myth!
These two fairy sponges are familiar to us all, at least to those of us who dwell for even a small part of the year in the country, and use our eyes. Indeed, we need go no farther than our city parks, or even our "back-yard" gardens, to find at least one of them, for the sweetbrier is rarely neglected by this particular fairy.
So many specimens of both of these sponges have been sent to me by "Round Table" correspondents and others that I have begun to wonder how many of those other young people who have seen them and kept silence have wondered at their secret.
The two fairies which are responsible for these sponges have been captured by the inquisitive scientist, and have had their portraits taken for the rogues" gallery, and now we see them stuck upon tiny little three-cornered pieces of paper, and pinned in the specimen case as mere _insects_--gall-flies. The one is labelled _Cynips seminator_, the other, _Cynips rosae_.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A. One of the points detached.
B. Section of the base.
C, D. Cynips emerging.]
And now the prosaic entomologist proceeds to supplant fact for fancy.
This gall-fly is a sort of cousin to the wasps, but what we would call its sting is more than a mere sting. Like a sting, it seems to puncture the bark or leaf, and at the same time probably to inject its drop of venom; but at the same time it conveys to the depths of the wound a tiny egg, or perhaps a host of them. One gall-fly is thus a magician in chemistry, at least, for no sooner are these eggs deposited than the wounded branch begins to swell and form a cellular growth or tumor about them, the character of this abnormal growth depending upon the peculiar charm of the venomous touch--to one a tiny coral globe, to another a cl.u.s.ter of spines, to another a curved horn, and to our cynips of the white or scrub oak a peculiar globular, spongy growth which completely envelops the stem, sometimes to the size of a small apple. In its prime it is a beautiful object, with its fibrous, glistening texture studded with pink points. But this condition lasts but a few days, when the entire ma.s.s becomes brownish and woolly, which fact has given this insect the common name of "wool-sower."
And now we must lose no time if we would follow its history to its complete cycle. If we put one of these faded sponges in a tight-closed box, we shall in a few days learn the secret of its being. For this singular mimic fruit which has sprung at the behest of the gall-fly, like other fruits, has its seeds--seeds which are animated with peculiar life, and which sprout in a way we would hardly expect.
Within a fortnight after gathering, perhaps, we find our box swarming with tiny, black flies, while if we dissect the sponge we find its long-beaked seeds entirely empty, and each with a clean round hole gnawed through its sh.e.l.l, explaining this host of gall-flies, all similar to the parent of a few weeks since, and all bent on the same mischief when you shall let them loose at the window.