p your starfish, carry it
to the nearest field, and pluck a daisy close to the head. How interesting
the comparison becomes, now that the knowledge of its meaning is plain.
Anything which grows fast upon a single immovable stem tends to grow
equally in all directions. We need not stop here, for we may include sea
anemones and corals, those most marvellously coloured flowers of the sea,
which grow upon a short, thick stalk and send out their tentacles equally
in all directions. And many of the jelly-fish which throb along close
beneath the surface swells were in their youth each a section of a pile of
saucer-like individuals, which were fastened by a single stalk to some
shell or piece of coral.

We will remember that it was suggested that the theoretical daisy would
soon alter its shape after it entered upon active life. This is plainly
seen in the starfish, although at first glance the creature seems as
radially symmetrical as a wheel. But at one side of the body, between two
of the arms, is a tiny perforated plate, serving to strain the water which
enters the body, and thus the circular tendency is broken, and a beginning
made toward right and left handedness. In certain sea-urchins, which are
really starfishes with the gaps between the arms filled up, the body is
elongated, and thus the head and tail conditions of all animals higher in
the scale of life are represented.

THE DREAM OF THE YELLOW-THROAT

Many of us look with longing to the days of Columbus; we chafe at the
thought of no more continents to discover; no unknown seas to encompass.
But at our very doors is an "undiscovered bourne," from which, while the
traveller invariably returns, yet he will have penetrated but slightly
into its mysteries. This unexplored region is night.

When the dusk settles down and the creatures of sunlight seek their rest,
a new realm of life awakens into being. The flaring colours and loud
bustle of the day fade and are lost, and in their place come soft, gray
tones and silence. The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden perch and soon
from the same tree slips a silent, ghostly owl; the ruby of the
hummingbird dies out as the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, and
the gray wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar from the spectral
moonflowers.

* * * * *

With feet shod with silence, let us creep near a dense tangle of
sweetbrier and woodbine late some summer evening