1912 EI^TOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 67 



the point of danger, and turned the other upon its way of retreat. The eyes played 

 in grooves which served as squints. 



After the brook became a feature of the landscape it passed through a small 

 beaver-meadow. The heavers had long since been exterminated, and their dam 

 broke down, but the remains of it could be traced. This meadow was a valuable 

 possession, for here the owner cut the winter fodder for his few cows. The Blue- 

 joint Grass {Calamagrosiis canadensis, Beauv.) grew in it; and it is not bad 

 ••' feed." 



The farmer returning to his home, through the meadow, on a dark night, saw 

 •what he took to be a tree-stump a short distance from him. He crossed the stream 

 and reached his dwelling. There the thought struck him, — Why, there is no stump 

 there. In the morning he went down to see. There Was no stump; but, in the 

 ■soft ground near the brook, he found the foot-prints of a large bear which had fol- 

 lowed him so far. 



On a certain occasion, sitting by the brook in an idle mood, I wrote these lines : 



See, where the rippling rill with many a bound — 

 Restless, as is a lambkin in its play, 

 Amid the verdant meadows winds its way — 

 A band of ribbon on a velvet ground. 

 Now glancing gaily o'er the pebbled shallows, 

 Now, in a deeper channel, slowly gliding — 

 Fondly lingering, but ne'er abiding. 

 It may not stay. 

 Where yellow-lilies made its mimic waves their pillows, 

 And arrow-heads its bosom pierce. 

 Now 'tis hiding 

 Amid the meadow-sweet, and flags, and willows, 

 And now, with current fierce, 

 It breaks away. 



In those days the little stream abounded with Brook-trout {SalveliniLs fontin- 

 alis). The speckled beauties lay hid in every eddy, and under shelter of every 

 stone. I often rose at daybreak and caught a dish of them for breakfast. 



It is said that the Black Fly is an enemy to the fish ; certainly it is not a 

 friend to the fisherman. // will hite. and bite freely, whether the fish will do so, 

 or not. 



Harris, in ''Insects Injurious to Vegetation,'^ page 601, describes our Cana- 

 dian Black Flies under the name of Siniulium molestum. Baron Osten Sacken, in 

 the "American Entomologist and Botanist," page 229, gives an interesting account 

 of their "Transformations," and Oskar Augustus Jonannsen, in part 6, of Bulletin 

 68, "published under direction of Ephraim Porter Felt" in 1903, well describes 

 many kinds of these blood-thirsty little creatures. There is a host of them We 

 are quite satisfied with those that favour us — we have no desire to witness additions 

 to their numbers. 



After leaving the mill that I have mentioned, the stream passed through 

 an "intervale'' of considerable dimensions. This was a grand place both for plants 

 and insects. In it grew the Queen of all our Orchids, — Orchis spectahile, L., 

 glorious with its large scroll-like blossoms washed with carmine. The Marsh Mari- 

 gold (Caltha paluS'tris, L.), the Purple Loosestrife (Nesa>a verticellata, H.B.K.), 

 the Field Lily (Lilium canadense, L.), the Large Blue Flag (7m versicolor, L.), 

 the Larger Bur Marigold (Bidens chrysanthemoides, Mich.), all common, but all 

 showy, did their best — each in its season — to 



" Make so gay the solita»y place." 



