194 SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 



Creek region is the spring beauty. Like most 

 others it grows in streaks. A few paces from 

 where your attention is monopolized by vio- 

 lets, or arbutus, it is arrested by the clayto- 

 nia, growing in such profusion that it is im- 

 possible to set the foot down without crush- 

 ing the flowers. Only the forenoon walker 

 sees them in all their beauty, as later in the 

 day their eyes are closed, and their pretty 

 heads drooped in slumber. In only one lo- 

 cality do I find the ladies' slipper, a yel- 

 low variety. The flowers that overleap all 

 bounds in this section are the houstonias. 

 By the 1st of April they are very noticeable 

 in warm, damp places along the borders of 

 the woods and in half-cleared fields, but by 

 May these localities are clouded with them. 

 They become visible from the highway across 

 wild fields, and look like little puffs of smoke 

 clinging close to the ground. 



On the 1st of May I go to the Hock Creek 

 or Piny Branch region to hear the wood- 

 thrush. I always find him by this date leis- 

 urely chanting his lofty strain ; other thrushes 

 are seen now also, or even earlier, as Wilson's, 

 the olive-backed, the hermit, the two latter 

 silent, but the former musical. 



Occasionally in the earlier part of May I 



