A NATURALIST'S GLIMPSE OF THE LIMBERLOST 



FLORA MAY TUTTLE 



An errand combining business and pleasure carried me into 

 the eastcentral part of Indiana, and so on my return I resolved to 

 see the home of the gifted creator of Freckles, Laddie and the 

 Girl of the Limberlost. 



I had passed Crown Point on the "Pennsy" and was nearing 

 Logansport, when my attention was called to clumps of majestic 

 trees, standing in swampy grounds — trees that I knew from then- 

 form had one day stood in a dense forest. But when I passed rail 

 fences, it dawned upon me that this was once the region of the Lim- 

 berlost, or more correctly speaking, the Timberlost. It is the biggest 

 crime that can be laid at the door of the state of Indiana. Not even 

 her wonderfully paved roads will ever redeem her from the short 

 sightedness of allowing so much of that wonderful forest to be 

 sacrificed. 



Tramps along White River at Anderson, Madison county, In- 

 diana, resulted in many delightful experiences. I found two varie- 

 ties of snails that were new to me, and at Rome City in the northern 

 part of the state, a tiny worm shell shaped like a powder horn. In 

 the gravel at Anderson were fossils of worm borers, and Favosites 

 that I recognized as coming from the Niagara formation; as well as 

 specimens of Acervularia from the Hamilton group of the Devonian 

 and which may have come from southern Michigan. The gravel, 

 while in the main unlike that with which I am most familiar — the 

 lowan — in that I found that the red Jasper and Agates were an un- 

 known quantity, had one characteristic of the lowan and that was 

 the amount of greenstone found in it. This may be due to the fact 

 that the gravel came from the Labradorean instead of the Keewatin 

 glacier. The prevailing rock outcrops were a blue-gray limestone — 

 Niagara formation. 



I had the joy of seeing my first robin down along the river, Feb- 

 ruary 26th, of learning that the spring song of the song sparrow 

 does not end in a trill, and of studying at close range the cardinal, 

 which is a much lighter red than the ones that have taken up their 

 abode in Osage. 



