208 BOULDER REVERIES. 



trie and other lights. At present one is diving 

 and darting here and there, clinging one instant 

 to the margin of a submerged blade of grass, 

 the next to the stem of a dead leaf. Ever rest- 

 less, it moves with but slight pause freely 

 through its limpid element, at times rising and 

 hanging for a few seconds, head downward, with 

 tip of abdomen just above the surface of the 

 water, while it inhales a new supply of air. 



Along the shaded banks of the stream the 

 ground ivy in many places mats the surface of 

 earth with great masses of its crenate kidney- 

 shaped, dark green leaves ; exhaling ever at this 

 season the peculiar odor which is its most char- 

 acteristic possession. Below the ground ivy, 

 and often springing from the mud and silt in 

 the margin of the water, are the four-angled 

 stems of the monkey-flower, two species of which 

 open in mid-summer their purple-tipped petals 

 to drink in the dew and the sunshine. 



Before me as I write is another pool, deeper 

 in the past than now, which in years agone I 

 have seined for suckers and from which, on one 

 occasion, I pulled forth a gigantic snapping 



