54 



THE AQUAKIUM, JULY. 1896. 



eth the Cedars, yea, the Cedars of Leb- 

 anon ! " But, he will tell you this, 

 nature's music is never still, never 

 silent, though often varied, for each 

 tree has its part ; the surging of the 

 oak, the whispering of the elm, the 

 rustling of the beech, the laugh of the 

 birch, the sighing of the willow, the 

 moaning of the hemlock, the dirge of 

 the cypress. The pine alone remains 

 constant to melody throughout the 

 year. Every breeze that touches the 

 pine in any season of the year wakes 

 up myriads of fairy harps which united 

 set the air trembling with the most 

 moving harmony that nature affords, 

 the harp music of nature's orchestra. 

 Even the asjoect of the woodland itself, 

 if thick with tangled underbrush, the 

 unexplored, impervious forests of the 

 Amazon rise up to the imagination, or 

 if thick with ferns and grasses, it re- 

 calls visions of Australian fern trees 

 and wattles ; fern trees, now the only 

 corresponding and connecting link to 

 the fossil plants of the coal formation, 

 beneath whose mighty coverts the sau- 

 rian monsters roamed, the giants of the 

 earth in those days, monsters extinct 

 and passed away, leaving their epitaph 

 in stone to be deciphered only by the 

 researches of science centuries after 

 their existence. 



Should the road lead near, or by a 

 pond, our naturalist shrinks not from 

 the wet and swampy ground surroundincr 

 it, for the "Forget me not" is there, 

 with blossom blue as the sky of 

 Heaven, and its golden eye bright as 

 Hope itself ; there is the calamus, or 

 sweet-scented flag, the iris, the bullrush, 

 heavy and swaying in the wind, the 

 water-lily, rivaling in its blossom the 

 magnolia of southern climes, and har- 

 boring under its broad leaves the j^ike 

 and the perch, the bass and the pickerel. 



those favorites of meek Walton's fol- 

 lowers. The delicate whites and pinks, 

 and yellows and blues of the aquatic 

 blossoms, how bewitching are they in 

 the sunlight ! 



Adhering to the pond-weed, or slowly 

 drawing their homes along with them, 

 are visible the water snails, amongst 

 which is conspicuous the Planorbis or 

 Coilshell, a representative left us of the 

 ammonite, one of the most universal 

 fossils of the secondary rocks ; shells, 

 whose proportions have dwindled down 

 from their colossal size in days of yore, 

 when their circumference equaled that 

 of a wheel, to that of an ordinary copper 

 coin, contrasting in their diminution 

 the i3resent i:>igmy race of man with his 

 predecessors. 



Here we see the Dragon-Fly disporting 

 on its gauzy wings, itself glittering 

 with blue and green, flashing back the 

 sunshine,now hovering poised above the 

 surface of the pool, as if desirous of 

 telling its kindred larvaj who still re- 

 main below, and from one of which it 

 lately sprung, the glorious beauty here- 

 after waiting them when their trans- 

 formation takes place ; but the watery 

 element defies the advance of insect 

 life, and between them there is a great 

 gulf fixed. Fancy may lead us to pic- 

 ture to ourselves the grub preparatory 

 to bursting his prison house by the 

 water side, and rising on glittering 

 wings into the summer air, promising 

 tidings to his fellows of the state it is- 

 about to enter, and the longings of 

 those left behind to hear something of 

 that state, dimly fancied by them, but 

 unknown. We could fancy him re- 

 turning amidst the transports of 

 his wildest fiights, ever and anon, to 

 the precincts of that water world which 

 had once been the only world to him ; 

 and thus divided, yet near, parted, yet 



