IN THE CAMBRIDGE SWAMP 29 



off, by a difference in color, if by nothing 

 else. " Cat-tails " and cat-tail flags," the 

 Manual and the Illustrated Flora call them; 

 but I was brought up to say " cat-o'-nine- 

 tails," with strong emphasis on the numeral, 

 and am glad to find that more romantic- 

 sounding name recognized by the latest big 

 dictionary. Not that the name has any par- 

 ticular appropriateness ; but like my fellows, 

 I have been trained to venerate a dictionary, 

 especially an " unabridged," as hardly less 

 sacred than the Bible, and am still much 

 relieved whenever my own usage, past or 

 present, happens to be supported by such 

 authority. 



Rankness is the swamp's note, we may 

 say. Look at the spatter-dock leaves and 

 the pickerel weed ! The tropics themselves 

 could hardly do better. And what a maze 

 and tangle of vegetation ! as if the earth 

 could produce more than the air could find 

 room for. So much for plenty of water 

 and a wholesome depth of black mud. One 

 thinks of the scriptural phrase about paths 

 that " drop fatness." 



Ever since I arrived, the short, hurried, 



