The morning of the seventh, I hurried off at sunrise through the dewy meadows. I felt sure I was too late for the Showy Orchis and the Ram’s-Head Cypripedium, the former having faded in Bronx Valley as early as May 18th. The hills were glorious; the robins, orioles, and bobolinks were carolling joyously. The meadows, still heavy with dew, caused me to choose my path along the edges of the Bone Lot near the old Pond Hole. This I found fringed with pink azaleas,—the swamp-apple blossoms loved of the children hereabout. I entered the chestnut wood beyond, and sought the colony of the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flowers, only to find that the shoes had been broken from their stems, and that there were none remaining. Still, there were other groups in the Swamp of Oracles, and I proceeded to scout the slopes leading to the hollow below, winding about the knolls—or Sugar-loaves, as they are called here. These glacial hills are worthless barren pastures at best, seldom ploughed for rye or corn, for all attempted crops of grain here have proven thin and dwarfed, and when it rains gutters burrow in the hillsides. As I descended through Patterson’s Meadows, the air was musical with humming bees and birds. Moths and butterflies sailed lazily about the pools below, hovering about the first blossoms of Fleur-de-lis. Over the rolling fields near, the tender leaves of Indian-corn rustled musically in the breeze, and crows were still lingering on the fence, not in the least frightened by the snares and scarecrows about the field. I found the meadow ablaze with late Columbine (_Aquilegia Canadensis_); I had never before seen fields so luxuriant with the blossoms of this plant. They danced among the daisies, and outnumbered the grasses in their patches. The generic name _Aquilegia_, or _Aquileia_, is said in our manuals to be derived from _Aquila_, an eagle, since the curves of the hollow spurs of these flowers resemble an eagle’s talons. But in this case, the name should read _Pes Aquilegia_. Among the ancient herbals, however, there is no record of this derivation. Originally, as Dodoens wrote in 1578, this plant was known as _Aquileia_. Aquileia was also the name of a town in the vicinity of ancient Troy. The town was celebrated in history for its desperate resistance to Attila, King of the Huns. Assuming that the origin of the name is vague, and observing the customs of the ancients in the naming of plants, it might be inferred that these flowers were first observed in the town of Aquileia, or were named in honor of a king or herbalist of the region. This was the case with the _Pæonia_, which took its title from that good old man, Dr. Pæon of Pæonia, in Macedonia. The origin of the common name _Columbine_, also, has occasioned of late much discussion in the popular plant journals.[44] One author, claiming that the spurs of these flowers resembled a dove’s-foot, said that the name should read “_Pes Columbinus_”—_pes_