WINTER FERN-HUNTING 



head is a spot where the black muck, 

 cushioned with yielding sphagnum, slopes 

 gently upward to firmer ground beneath 

 the maples till these give way to the 

 birches on the drier hillside. Here the 

 ostrich fern waved its seven-foot fronds 

 in feathery beauty amid the musky twi- 

 light of the swamp all summer long. 



It was as if giants, playing battledore, 

 had driven a hundred green shuttlecocks 

 to land in the woodcock-haunted shelter. 

 The tangle of their fronds was chin high 

 and you smashed your way through their 

 woody stipes with difficulty, so strong 

 and thick were they. Now they have 

 vanished and scarcely a trace of their 

 presence remains. Brown and brittle 

 stalks rise a little from the earth here 

 and there, and if you search among fallen 

 leaves you may find the ends of their root- 

 stalks with the growth for next year 

 71 



