NATURE STUDY. 



PUBI^ISHKD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 



Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences. 



Vol. IV. October, 1903. No. 5. 



The Home of the Black-Fly. 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



There is a brook, a brisk hour's walk awa}- from my 

 home, which I have visited often, summer and winter, 

 spring and fall, for four j^ears or more, that I might come 

 to know the creatures that live in it and learn their ways. 

 It begins with tiny rivulets, which meet in one of the small- 

 est of ponds, that is half marsh, and just large enough 

 for two or three families of muskrats to build their winter 

 houses in, which they do every year. 



F'rom this boggy pond, which is little more than a pool, 

 it flows on through woodland, growing bigger and strong- 

 er, until it reaches a level, open space, that the early set- 

 tlers called a ' ' beaver meadow, ' ' because long ago the 

 beavers lived here in a pond of their own making. The 

 last trace of the dam that the beavers built has disappeared, 

 but one may still see the narrowed passage between two 

 banks, where it must have been. The brook flows slowly 

 in a winding course through this meadow, as if thinking 

 of the past and wondering where the beavers are, and then 



