a very common one, judging from the provision made for the young. But so httle attention has yet been paid to entomology in this country, that we have not been able to discover, from any books within reach, what little creature it is which crowds the wych-hazel leaves in this way.
Those excrescences made by insects are probably always injurious to the plant, the little creatures generally feeding on the juices of the foliage, which they often destroy; but the tiny parasitic plants of the Æcidium tribe are comparatively harmless, and they are frequently ornamental.
Tuesday, 5th.—A party of chimney-swallows were seen wheeling over the highway, near the bridge, this afternoon.[1]
Wednesday, 6th.—Delightful weather. Long walk. The Michaelmas daisies and golden-rods are blooming abundantly in the fields and woods. Both these common flowers enliven the autumn very much for us, growing freely as they do in all soils and situations, for, unlike the more delicate wild flowers of spring, they are not easily driven from the ground, growing as readily in the fields among foreign grasses as in their native woods. By their profusion, their variety, and their long duration, from midsummer to the sharpest frosts of autumn, they console us for the disappearance of the earlier flowers, which, if more beautiful, are more fragile also.
The golden-rod is a fine showy plant in most of its numerous forms. There are said to be some ninety varieties in North America, and about a third of these belong to our own part of the continent, the Middle States of the Union. Of this number, one, with
- ↑ These were the last swallows seen that season in our neighborhood.
