1 6 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



it joins the Hoosac River. The other stream, Ball 

 Brook, flows north and northeast onward through in- 

 numerable and unfathomable swamps, to Bennington 

 village, ten miles north, there meeting the Walloom- 

 sac River, which is also a tributary of the Hoosac, 

 farther northward in its course. This brook is rich in 

 a continuous chain of peat bogs — rich from an orchid- 

 hunter's point of view. 



Although I have been familiar with this region from 

 childhood, viewing it from the roadside onl}^ I never 

 at any time had ventured to follow Ball Brook through 

 all its meanderings to the Bogs of Etchowog near 

 Pownal Pond, a distance of some three miles. This 

 would not be a long walk on a fair road, but it becomes 

 rather dangerous and formidable when leading through 

 quaking marshes in the soaking currents of a stream. 



A short distance to the right, north of the school- 

 house in Number Fourteen, there is an old pathway 

 nearly overgrown with bushy pines and birch and 

 chestnut underbrush. This I followed, entering the 

 hollow under the brow of the hill, and passing along 

 the wood road w4iich skirts the margins of one of the 

 deepest, darkest jungles in these regions. The old 

 people look upon it as akin to "Witch Hollow," on 

 the Gulf Road near by, and tell strange tales of ghosts, 

 and of some mythological peddler who was swallowed 

 here in the black mud of this ancient tarn, after having 

 been robbed of his fine silks and precious jewels. 



Weird, hollow drummings issue and echo through 

 these shaded vales from time to time. Probably they 



