232 WASTE-LAND WANDERINGS. 



of 11 inland levels if it is washed from extensive areas! 

 The growth and disintegration of a continent is epito- 

 mized in the work unceasingly performed by this bub- 

 bling spring. 



In the immediate vicinity and even along the little 

 brook, where there is more of sunshine, is little if any 

 August bloom. The plants are green, luxuriant, and of 

 many kinds, but all flower at the commencement of the 

 season instead of at its close. It is in Ma}^, when the 

 spring is hedged in w^ith bloom — dog-wood, azalea, and 

 other shrubs. Each succeeding month the brilliancy of 

 bloom is more and more replaced by a wilderness of 

 leaves only. Here is one of tlie few spots where lamb- 

 lettuce, w^ith deep blue flowers, suggesting the forget- 

 me-not, grows in great profusion, and nearer the creek 

 there is, each returning spring, a never-to-be-forgotten 

 display of blooming golden -club. This is, except the 

 yellow lotus, our least abundant w\ater - plant, and so 

 never fails to attract attention when in bloom. The 

 plant itself, later in the summer, is pretty, but liable to 

 be overlooked amid the wealth of growths that crowd 

 the valley. ^N'ot so in May, when the plant is in bloom. 

 The long, tapering spathes, densely covered with minute 

 blossoms of the richest yellow, are the most cons^Dicuous 

 objects on the water's edge. 



I examined many clusters of this plant w^hen in bloom, 

 during the past spring, and failed to find any evidence 

 that insects habitually visited it. This surjDrised me the 

 more, because I found the plant generally tenanted by a 

 small black spider, which placed its web at the base of 

 the finger-like stalks of bloom. 



