"When the insect was beyond further mischief the large eyes of the tarsier would open and the legs and wings were then bitten off, while the rest of the body was thoroughly masticated. My captive would also drink fresh milk from a spoon. After the sun had set this little animal became most difficult to manage, escaping when possible and making tremendous jumps from chair to chair. When on the floor it bounded about like a miniature kangaroo, traveling about the room on its hind legs with the tail stretched out and curved upward, uttering peculiar, shrill, monkeylike squeaks and biting quite viciously when the opportunity offered."
Thou dainty firstling of the spring, Homage due to thee, I bring.
The faintest blushes of the morn Do tint thy petals and adorn,
And thy fine perfume, sweetly faint, Is like the breathings of a saint.
Oh my sweet! how fair thou art; How chaste and pure thy dewy heart!
Thou poem of perfumed grace, Dear hope and truth beam from thy face.
I drink deep draughts of joyfulness, And bow before thy loveliness. --_Albert C. Pearson._
The great heath family (_Ericineæ_) are scattered over many parts of the world, and include a great variety of plants, many like the American laurel (_Kalmia_) being large shrubs or small trees. Others are much smaller, and among the smallest plants, there is none more beautiful and universally loved than the charming trailing arbutus (_Epigæa repens_).
Those who are fortunate enough to live in the localities where it is found have the rare pleasure of searching for the early blossoms, which prefer to nestle cosily at the foot of the evergreen trees, though they are sometimes found in the open.
The late snows may even cover the blooms, but when their delicate heads are peering through, we know that winter has fled, and that the snow mantle is only a cast-off garment which, too, will slip away, dissolved by the long rays of the early spring sunshine.
In New England the trailing arbutus is called May flower, and in other places is known as the ground laurel. Its scientific name (_Epigæa repens_) is from two Greek words, _epigæa_, meaning "upon the earth," and _repens_, "trailing, or creeping."
The word arbutus is from the Latin, meaning a tree, and is first applied to another tribe of the same family, and is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable--_ar_butus. This must not be confounded with the trailing arbutus, where usage allows the accent on the second syllable--ar_bu_tus (_Standard Dictionary_) and whose characteristics are very different.