A RAINY DAY 



Reaching the bed of the stream 

 at last, I found that the rocks on 

 the bank, though washed by the 

 floods in March, had managed to 

 hold fast to many plants of saxi- 

 frage. All winter I had watched 

 the rosettes and hoped to be first 

 to find a flower stalk. But they 

 had shot upwards with the first 

 warm shower and were already in 

 blossom. All up and down the 

 rocky sides of the gorge, wherever 

 a thin sheet of soil could be found 

 to cling to, there was the saxifrage, 



by hundreds 



227 



SAXIFRAGE 



and almost by 



thousands. YOUNG FERNS 



It was not yet time to go 

 home, and I concluded to pay 

 a visit to the pond above the 

 dam. It must be nearly "frog 

 time," if one could judge by 

 the choruses of the last few 

 nights. We once visited a 

 swamp in the evening just to 

 hear the orchestra. Of all the 

 batrachian songs I like the 

 basso profundo of the bull- 

 ^ frog best. It begins rather 

 faintly, with a few trial notes. 

 Then, gathering volume, it 

 soon wakes the echoes, zoom, 



