no 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXVI 



your dredge comes up with dragonfly nymphs but- 

 ting through the mud Almost every pond has its 

 own characteristics. In oae, the fairy shrimps may 

 be large and red, and in another they cannot be 

 found at all. Some ponds are afloat with empty snail 

 shells, anchored in shoals among the water weeds. 

 Water striders dance, and mosquito larvae are 

 wriggling in every pint of water. There is an odd 

 little gray shrimp that wriggles in dozens through 

 the mud m every netful taken from these ponds. 



Damsel-fly nymphs are to be found very plenti- 

 fully among the weeds in the Glen Burn creek, also 

 tiny clam shells and newly hatched crayfish. These 

 are little gems with coral claws, and their bodies are 

 almost transparent. In this stream some of the 

 caddis-cases are made of tiny grains of sand and 

 glitter like mica. The caddises I have met have 

 many styles of architecture for their houses, stone, 

 log cabin, stucco, and thatched. In May every 

 stick and stone you lift out of Glen Burn has stone- 

 fly larvae clinging tightly to it. 



I must tell you about one more stream on the 

 west bank. The hill behind it is almost a precipice, 

 and its surface is covered with earth that looks like 

 powdered lime. The material scratched out of the 

 woodchuck's front door looks like the product of 

 an old lime kiln. On this hill streams burst out 

 anywhere and move on to a fresh site at their own 

 sweet will. But things grow just the same, the 

 usual elms and maples, great tall cedars, and a few 

 pines. The ground is covered with velvety leaves 

 of wild ginger, meadow rue, and maidenhair fern. 

 The principal stream is a gusher, and one wet 

 summer, years ago, it carried down a good half of 

 the hill, trees and all, and laid them on the flat 

 limestone floor of the river. In doing this it cut 

 a deep little gorge for itself, and one hot summer 

 we camped there. When the temperature was 

 hovering 'round the '90's, it was always cool in 

 the gorge, and we even enjoyed bathing in the icy 

 water. There is just room for a tent on the bank 

 where the stream leaps to the river, and one night 

 I wakened and heard the stream singing over and 

 over the notes of a clear wild song of its own. 



One of the roughest trips known to me is a journey 

 up the gorge of this stream to the great hole left in 

 the hill after the "washout". The water is so cold 

 that you cannot wade in it long, and, clinging to 

 old roots and cedar branches, slipping on the slimy 

 marl, or sinking ankle deep in the cool wet moss, 

 deafened by the sound of the water, you climg up 

 and up, until you see the stream shooting out from 

 the side of the hill like a tiny Niagara. It changes 

 its place year by year. Last summer there were 

 three springs bursting out from different points. 



The flowers that grow in the Grand Valley are a 

 delight, from the first hepatica to the last fringed 



gentian. In the woods near the more inaccessible 

 lakes there is still Trailing Arbutus, protected by 

 the swamps being so full of water in the spring that 

 it is impossible to get across to the hillls where it 

 grows. Blood Root looks very pretty growing 

 among the waterworn limestone boulders, and, 

 later on, trilliums take their place. Last spring in 

 the woods above Glen Burn, the trilliums were like 

 a white sheet, spread among the trees. In June the 

 woods at Glen Morris are full of fringed Polygalas, 

 orchid-coloured, and the Pyrolas, Shin Leaf, and 

 One-Flowered, and in the last week of June I 

 always go to see the Orchids. 



The showy Ladies' Slipper grows in a sphagnum 

 swamp that extends for a couple of miles along the 

 base of the hills on the west side of the river at Glen 

 Morris. It is hard to get at, and for anything else 

 the damp sickeneing heat and the hosts of mos- 

 quitoes would keep me away. Old clothes, rubber 

 boots, and a cap tied down over the ears are indis- 

 pensable, for it is necessary to bore one's way 

 through an entanglement of ancient cedars and 

 tamaracks, over quaking bogs and masses of Skunk 

 Cabbage and Marshmarigold leaves, Torn, 

 splashed, hot, and mosquito-bitten, at last I reach 

 the tall dead tamarack that marks the secret spot. 

 On the rotting rails of an old decayed fence, the 

 Sundew holds out rosy, dew-tipped fingers, and 

 Pitcherplants, with pitchers half full of water, 

 snuggle in the moss. Some years they are in 

 blossom, but usually the maroon-coloured sepals 

 have fallen and only the green saddle is left. At 

 last, by a clump of tiny tamaracks, a white cross 

 gleams, and below it hangs the slipper like a white 

 shell, veined and spotted with pink and purple. 

 Always I stand breathless before the Queen Flower 

 of the swamp, then wander on enchanted from 

 clump to clump of the great orchids and worship 

 the glory hidden in the depths of the swamp. The 

 flowers are always perfect. One year, however, I 

 was horrified to find the slipper eaten away, and 

 to discover snails at this work of desecration. 



On the edges of this swamp, I have found the 

 smaller and larger Yellow Ladies' Slipper, but have 

 never seen the Moccasin Flower growing. People 

 bring specimens to Gait from a swamp near Kit- 

 chener, but will not betray the locality even to one 

 who never plucks an orchid. 



The Rein Orchis grows here, too, but its spikes 

 of greenish flowers are overlooked in the quest for 

 the Ladies' Slipper. The curved spirals of Ladies' 

 Tresses are found among the stones on the river 

 banks, and along paths through the pine woods I 

 find Rattlesnake Plantain. Once I found Rose 

 Pogonia growing by an old cedar stump in a bog, 

 but it has never appeared again, although I have 

 looked for it every year. The Showy Orchis grows 



