118 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



The banks of the little brook that skirted both these 

 meadow tracts and the stream itself were no less brill- 

 iant witli spring - tide blossoms. From the shallower 

 waters tliere arose a leafy growth of spear-like equise- 

 tum, and the spotted frogs crouching at their roots 

 seemed less a terror-stricken host than an alert army 

 bearing its weapons aloft, ready to battle with the hov- 

 ering, hungry-eyed herons. Hard by the beautiful oron- 

 tium was clustered, but not a frog was near to wield 

 their golden clubs. 



Flora w^as clearly averse to have any nook or corner 

 slighted, and the very mud of the creek's bank was hid- 

 den, even to the water's edge, with a marigold that had 

 no rival among the yellow blossoms of its day. 



Golden ragwort, worthy of a better name, a month 

 later overtopped all other bloom, and its fiery blossoms 

 set these meadows in a blaze. 



And yet later the very grass was hidden by golden 

 Cynthia, that paled the more ambitious evening prim- 

 rose growing with it ; nor yet content with her prodi- 

 gality, had scattered blue iris by every pool, and clus- 

 tered its yellow sisters at the creek. 



Almost the first bird I saw this morning, as I floated 

 out into the stream, was one of those melanistic house- 

 wrens which frequent the darkest and most inaccessible 

 nooks of our woods. In years gone by, I knew it as the 

 *' wood -wren," and it was as well defined a species in 

 plumage, habits, and peculiarities as any of the wren 

 family. We are told now that the wood- wren, of which 

 Audubon wrote so pleasantly, w^as nothing but a house- 



