1907] Sub-Excursions. 69 



black and white striped wings. We must ask its name! Then 

 following our leader he pretends to know and takes the wrong 

 road for variety we gather at the rendezvous. 



It is a beautiful spot, a little green dale with hills rising 

 gently around it, hills covered with many trees of lightsome 

 garments and here and there a sombre pine. At our feet is a 

 hearty little stream, and you can trace its course by the brown- 

 leaved bushes coaxed to its side. In and out of these bushes 

 flashes the black-throated blue warbler, and from all sides come 

 the songs of the birds. It is their even-song. Up behind the 

 hills, great, soft, white and grey and golden clouds are gathering, 

 and the light and shade fall on tlie fields before us. We see it 

 all and hear it almost unconsciously, for our leaders now are 

 telling each the results of his afternoon's search. They are 

 wonderfully modest, these leaders. They never make us feel 

 the amount of their knowledge and the littleness of ours, but 

 ever strive to interest and cheer us on to know more and to love 

 better. 



Mr. Macoun speaks of the birds that have charmed us with 

 color and flight and song, and our unspoken questions are 

 answered. It is because of the shelter of the meadow that so 

 man}- birds have gathered here this afternoon. Warblers in 

 unusual variety and sparrows and black-birds! It is not on the 

 beauty of these little creatures that the speaker dwells, it is on 

 their usefulness. How dependent we are on them! For should 

 these little creatures cease to be, what is to save our crops from 

 utter V)light of insect life grown strong through absence of its 

 old-time foe! There is so much practical value in our stud}'- of 

 Nature. 



And now it is Mr. Clarke's turn. And as he speaks of tree 

 and flovver and bush, a beauty conies to them,- a beauty quite 

 apart from form and color. How, on the wooded hillside grow 

 the hepatica. bellwort, adder's tongue, barren strawberry, 

 columbine, trillium, mitrewort, squirrel corn and wild ginger. 

 And down in the low grounds along the stream, the violets in 

 profusion make their home, and the marsh-marigolds and sweet 

 gale and meadow rue and Spiraea salicijolia fringing the stream 

 in great numbers, but not in bloom. And on the dry, thin soil 

 the white cedar, red cedar and juniper find the land of their 

 choice. It is a charming talk and impossible of reproduction 

 by the unlearned. 



Mr. Halkett speaks of various zoological objects collected 

 during the afternoon. Of mollusks, there were species of land 

 snails (Helicoids) , a specimen of a fresh- water snail (Planorbis) , 

 and a shell of a bivalve-mollusk (Sphcsrhim), the last mentioned 



