3o6 



THE MUSEUM. 



Mud Lake, as the name implies is 

 not more than knee-deep, but last 

 month's rain caused a rise of six in- 

 ches, and the water now covers about 

 200 acres. It is entirely overgrown 

 with spatter dock in the deeper places, 

 with smartweed in shallower water, 

 and all around its edge for a varying 

 width. Encircling the regular ex- 

 panse of water is a fringe of low wil- 

 lows and elbow wood, mostly dead 

 and crumbling, killed by fire some 

 years ago. In back of the willow 

 fringe begins the endless ocean of 

 marsh grasses, mainly spartina cyno- 

 suroides, growing on damper ground 

 as high as six feet; in drier situations 

 it is lower, and in some is entirely 

 overgrown with boneset and a few 

 other weeds, mostly of the family 

 Compositae. 



A second circle of treegrowth, back 

 of the willow circle, is composed prin- 

 cipally of honey locusts, which are at 

 this moment very conspicuous objects 

 all over the landscape through the 

 golden yellow of all their leaves. The 

 pin oakes are still green, with only the 

 tops and outer tips of branches turn- 

 ing crimson, affording quite an orna- 

 ment to the monotony of the marsh, 

 which has at present a sombre yellow 

 cast over the higher grasses while the 

 predominance of Eupatorium covers 

 the lower grasses with a hoary mantle. 

 The smartweed region is still green 

 but with a strong admixture of yellow 

 and brown shades. The shriveling 

 spatter docks form a sadly withering, 

 shapeless mass of gray and brown 

 tints, though partly trampled down 

 by cattle and thus exposing large 

 patches of open water. The lake is 

 on club grounds, but in hot weather 

 duck shooting is at a discount, and in 



days like this, when no hunter appears 

 on the scene, we and the birds have 

 the ground all to ourselves. 



The air is filled with bird voices; the 

 Blackbirds are seen and heard in all 

 directions. What would the marsh 

 be without its Blackbirds? A dreary 

 ocean of monotony! With them all is- 

 life, ever-changing life; a constant 

 coming and going, a uniting and sep- 

 arating, now here, now there down on 

 the ground, high in the air and even 

 on the lake itself; and withal a kalei- 

 doscopic frolic, produced by only a 

 small variety of individual sounds, per- 

 haps not more in number than the let- 

 ters of our alphabet, but through their 

 endless and ever-varying juxtaposition, 

 creating a medley of indescribable and 

 unique grandeur. 



Just back of us in the persimmon, 

 patch there is as busy an army of feed- 

 ing birds as can be found; they are on 

 the ground, almost covering it. Every 

 now and then, without apparent cause, 

 all go up in a body — and what a cloud 

 they make! They are all Red-winged 

 Blackbirds, old and young, but those 

 in spotted garb outnumber the red- 

 shouldered black as ten to one. The 

 persimmon fruit is now ripe and ready 

 to drop. The whir of the hundreds of 

 wings is heard only for a moment; af- 

 ter a beautifully executed turn the 

 cloud settles on the now leafless trees 

 on which some fruit is still hanging. 



Probably the whole manoeuvring is 

 carried out only for the purpose to 

 shake the fruit from the trees; the last 

 has hardly settled in -the trees when 

 the first already begin to decend, and 

 soon all feed eagerly on the sweet and 

 succulent persimmons lying on the 

 ground. 



At once there is another rustle of 



