THE MINK'S HUNTING GROUND 



the size of a pinhead and a half, then 

 split and become independent plants with 

 a tiny root hair apiece. Brave equip- 

 ment this for facing the January gales 

 and frost of a northern winter. Yet they 

 sail forth from the home pool as confi- 

 dently as liners from the home port and 

 rollick all along down the stream, mak- 

 ing harbor in every tiny bay and collect- 

 ing a fleet in each eddy. What potency 

 of perpetual spring they sow as they trav- 

 erse all the ways that wind in and about 

 the levels below the fountain head we do 

 not know, any more than we know what 

 elixir vitae dwells in the waters on which 

 they are borne, yet something makes the 

 region the lotus land of creatures of the 

 wild where they linger on unmindful of 

 their vanished kindred. 



Out of the rich vegetable mould of ages, 

 in the cool, moist shadows grow the rarer 



