214 IN SUMMER. 



long" overland journeys in spring and early sum- 

 mer ; but I did not look for fish, as none could 

 come down the brook, and I as little supposed 

 that any could climb fifty feet above the river 

 and reach it ; and then they would have, besides, 

 to jump over the dam or waddle around it. 

 And I saw no fish until weeks after the pond 

 was completed. I stocked it with carp, and 

 then, lo ! there were mud-minnows in these shut- 

 off waters. Of course, they were there before 

 the dam was built, and now they are too well es- 

 tablished to be exterminated. I can only hope 

 they will not find the carps' eggs, or feed exclu- 

 sively on the young fish. 



What, then, have I accomplished by damming 

 a little brook? I have changed to a watery 

 wilderness the corner of a one-time dusty field. 

 I have brought representatives of many forms of 

 animal life, hitherto unknown to the spot, to a 

 prosy nook, and so changed the whole face of 

 Nature. The very weeds are even now different 

 from those of former years, and hosts of insects 

 that had not been here before now fill the air 

 and make it to tremble with their tireless wings. 

 And to the rambler, after long tramping in dusty 

 fields or along the no less cheerless highway, 

 here is a pleasant spot indeed, one that epito- 

 mizes half the country round, and offers, too, 

 many a suggestive novelty. So much by day ; 



