IO THE COMING OF SPRING 



Spring, the flower procession is upon us and march- 

 ing by, music and all. Of course the memory of 

 it remains, and often gives us back what we did 

 not visualize at the time. It is then that the 

 camera comes to our aid, that silent companion 

 whose eye translates the doings of nature truth- 

 fully, without gossip, yet always in an indulgent 

 spirit being in itself a lesser magician, bringing 

 the frolicking squirrel, the brooding bird and the 

 delicate traceries of flower and fern within the very 

 glow of the study fireside, yet leaving them unmo- 

 lested in their haunts. 



One day I had found a plant of Blue Fringed 

 Gentian in a place where before it was unknown. 

 I thought, "If I pick the flowers they will close, 

 and, being an annual, the place will know the 

 wanderer no more. I will take its portrait for 

 my photo -herbarium." Then when I had left the 

 place and it was too late, I fell to wondering 

 what other stray plants might have been its com- 

 panions in the sodden meadow where the bog 

 moss was ankle deep, for I had seen only the 

 Gentian. 



The answer to my thoughts flashed back next 

 day from the developed plate, where I found 

 Forget-me-nots, Grass of Parnassus, three kinds 



