148 WAKE-ROBIN 



varieties of early flowers to be buried in eight 

 inches of snow. 



Another abundant flower in the Rock Creek re- 

 gion is the spring beauty. Like most others, it 

 grows in streaks. A few paces from where your 

 attention is monopolized by violets or arbutus, it is 

 arrested by the claytonia, growing in such profusion 

 that it is impossible to set the foot down without 

 crushing the flowers. Only the forenoon walker 

 sees them in all their beauty, as later in the day 

 their eyes are closed, and their pretty heads drooped 

 in slumber. In only one locality do I find the 

 lady's-slipper, — a yellow variety. The flowers 

 that overleap all bounds in this section are the hous- 

 tonias. By the 1st of April they are very notice- 

 able in warm, damp places along the borders of the 

 woods and in half-cleared fields, but by May these 

 localities are clouded with them. They become 

 visible from the highway across wide fields, and 

 look like little pus's of smoke clinging close to the 

 ground. 



On the 1st of May I go to the Rock Creek or 

 Piny Branch region to hear the wood thrush. I 

 always find him by this date leisurely chanting his 

 lofty strain; other thrushes are seen now also, or 

 even earlier, as Wilson's, the olive-backed, the 

 hermit, — the two latter silent, but the former 

 musical. 



Occasionally in the earlier part of May I find the 

 woods literally swarming with warblers, exploring 

 every branch and leaf, from the tallest tulip to the 



