Ug IN SPRING. 



row strip of the exposed tract. Viewing it from 

 other points, it was evident that a ditch had once 

 been dug where these ranker grasses grew, and 

 through long neglect it had finally been choked 

 with weeds and almost obliterated. It was a de- 

 lightful discovery. Armed with a spade, a hoe, 

 and sundry tools of greater or less efficiency, I 

 set out to explore this one-time watercourse, 

 thinking it child's play to move tons of matted 

 weeds and mud. How much or how little I ac- 

 complished it matters not, but the fierce on- 

 slaught of unreasoning enthusiasm broke in the 

 door of a zoological El Dorado. 



Jetsam and flotsam from the yearly freshets, 

 showers of wind-tossed autumn leaves, a forest 

 of rank growths that revel in the mud, all had 

 added their quota, unchecked, to the baneful 

 work of damming the little stream, which 

 finally had been shut from view, but, as it 

 proved, not wholly overcome. A narrow, tube- 

 like channel still remained, with the mud below 

 and upon each side almost as yielding as the 

 water itself. Here fish, turtles, and creeping 

 things innumerable not only lived, but wended 

 their darksome way from the open ditch not far 

 off to the basins of the sparkling springs at the 

 hill-foot. I had discovered a hidden highway, a 

 busy thoroughfare that teemed with active life. 



Except with those forms of life that by their 



