I had walked this way many times before I chanced upon its retreat;
and then I was following a line of bees. I lost the bees but I got the
gentians. How curiously this flower looks, with its deep blue petals
folded together so tightly--a bud and yet a blossom. It is the nun
among our wild flowers, a form closely veiled and cloaked.
The buccaneer bumble-bee sometimes tries to rifle it of its sweets.
I have seen the blossom with the bee entombed in it. He had forced his
way into the virgin corolla as if determined to know its secret, but he
had never returned with the knowledge he had gained.
After a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we reach a point where we
will make our first trial--a high stone wall that runs parallel with
the wooded ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad field.
There are bees at work there on that goldenrod, and it requires but
little maneuvering to sweep one into our box. Almost any other
creature rudely and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into
a cage in this way would show great confusion and alarm.
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