This is a strange, beautiful orchid with a straight seed-pod (ovary), which causes the labellum to remain on the upper side of the inner whorl, instead of the lower side by torsion as in nearly all other orchids.] It is said that the twisted ovary seen in orchids came about through necessity in fertilization. This has caused, as Darwin says, “the labellum to assume the position of a lower petal, so that insects can easily visit the flower; but from slow changes in the form or position of the petals, or from new sorts of insects visiting the flowers, it might be advantageous to the plant that the labellum should resume its normal position on the _upper_ side of the flower.”[31] In the present position of the labellum of Cypripedium we observe the convenient resting-place for the bee as it alights and descends to the interior, where are stored the nectar and attractive colors. The insect must be persevering indeed to win the soul of the orchids, since Nature has constructed their organs with such care and modifications. The hidden hinge to the cups of pollen—as instanced in the flowers of the Grass-Pink—demonstrates that even the finest hairs and tissues in these plants have their meaning and their values. Self-fertilization seems impossible to the Rose-colored Pogonia, which bears but one flower. The plants must inter-cross. An interesting account of the fertilization of this orchid is given at length by Dr. Samuel H. Scudder,[32] in the _Proceedings_ of the Boston Society of Natural History. VIII A Colony of Ram’s-Heads in Witch Hollow The solemn wood had spread Shadows around my head,— “Curtains they are,” I said, “Hung dim and still about the house of prayer”; Softly among the limbs, Turning the leaves of hymns, I heard the winds, and asked if God were there. No voice replied, but while I listening stood, Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood. ALICE CARY, _The Sure Witness_. It was often a temptation during my search for wild strawberries, to saunter through the swampy meadows on the northern slopes of Mount Œta, where nesting bobolinks were busy about their homes. Their happy notes are the first to awaken one in the morning, and almost the last heard at twilight, about the edges of the road and the orchard, where they come in a very business-like way to search for food, crying the while, “Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link, spink, spank, spink; chee, chee, chee!”