A QUEER LITTLE FAMILY ON THE BITTERSWEET
n a recent half-hour's relaxation, while comfortably stretched in my hammock upon the porch of my country studio, I was surprised with a singular entertainment. I soon found myself most studiously engaged. Entwining the corner post of the piazza, and extending for some distance along the eaves, a luxuriant vine of bittersweet had made itself at home. The currant-like clusters of green fruits, hanging in pendent clusters here and there, were now nearly mature, and were taking on their golden hue, and the long, free shoots of tender growth were reaching out for conquest on right and left in all manner of graceful curves and spirals. Through an opening in this shadowy foliage came a glimpse of the hill-side slope across the valley upon whose verge my studio is perched, and as my eye penetrated this pretty vista it was intercepted by what appeared to be a shadowed portion of a rose branch crossing the opening and mingling with the bittersweet stems. In my idle mood I had for some moments so accepted it without a thought, and would doubtless have left the spot with this impression had I not chanced to notice that this stem, so beset with conspicuous thorns, was not consistent in its foliage. My suspicions aroused, I suddenly realized that my thorny stem was in truth merely a bittersweet branch in masquerade, and that I had been "fooled" by a sly midget who had been an old-time acquaintance of my boyhood, but whom I had long neglected.
Every one knows the climbing-bittersweet, or "waxwork" (Celastrus scandens), with its bright berries hanging in clusters in the autumn copses, each yellow berry having now burst open in thin sections and exposed the scarlet-coated seeds. Almost any good-sized vine, if examined early in the months of July and August, will show us the thorns, and more sparingly until October, and queer thorns they are, indeed! Here an isolated one, there two or three together, or perhaps a dozen in a quaint family circle around the stem, their curved points all, no matter how far separated, inclined in the same direction, as thorns properly should be. Let us gently invade the little colony with our finger-tip. Touch one never so gently and it instantly disappears. Was ever thorn so deciduous? And now observe its fellows. Here one slowly glides up the stem; another in the opposite direction; another sideways. In a moment more the whole family have entirely disappeared, as if by hocus-pocus, until we discover, by a change of our point of view, that they have all congregated on the opposite side of the stem, with an agility which would have done credit to the proverbial gray squirrel.
This animated thorn is about a quarter of an inch long, and dark brown in color, with two yellowish spots on the edge of its back.
Nor is this all the witchery of this bittersweet thorn. It is well worth our further careful study. Seen collectively, the thorny rose branch is instantly suggested, but occasionally, when we observe a single isolated specimen, especially in the month of July, he will certainly masquerade in an entirely new guise. Look! quick. Turn your magnifier hither on this green shoot. No thorn this. Is it not rather a whole covey of quail, mother and young creeping along the vine? Who would ever have thought of a thorn! Turning now to our original group, how perfectly do they take the hint, for are they not a family of tiny birds with long necks and swelling breasts and drooping tails, verily like an autumn brood of "Bob Whites"?
A Bittersweet Covey