A MEADOW MUD-HOLE. 



157 



quickly missed were it absent ; they are part and 

 parcel of an evolved microcosm, needing nothing. 

 Such was this little creek. 



Into the deep mud of the stream, widened 

 here by a dam to a pond of several acres, a single 

 tuber of the Egyptian lotus was placed eight 

 years ago, and the result awaited with much 

 curiosity, if not anxiety. That same year it 

 sprouted and grew luxuriantly. It was soon too 

 prominent a feature of the landscape for its own 

 good the cows came, saw, and tasted, but did 

 not fatally wound. It withstood the summer's 

 heat, but would it withstand the winter's cold ? 

 The pond that before was like all other ponds is 

 so no longer. The native growths that seemed 

 so firmly rooted have disappeared, and the lotus 

 has taken all their places so completely, indeed, 

 that now even the water is shut from view for 

 more than an acre's space. As the spot is ap- 

 proached from the neighboring hill-top we get a 

 bird's-eye view, the effect of which is striking and 

 thoroughly un- native, so far as plant life is con- 

 cerned, and in a measure disappointing. Recall 

 some rainy day in a crowded city when from an 

 upper window you have looked down upon the 

 street. No sidewalk and but little wagon-way 

 to be seen nothing but a waving expanse of 

 upraised umbrellas. Hence the disappointment, 

 if you have read travelers' tales of the lotus 



