108 



The Canadian Field-Naturalist 



[Vol. XXXVI 



birches are sliding to their death in the spring flood. 



It was on this ridge, looking back towards the 

 fifth ravine, that I saw the top of a maple apparently 

 blooming with a gorgeous red blossom, and until 

 the flower took wings and flew away, I did not 

 realize that it was a Scarlet Tanager. 



These ridges between ravines are almost solid 

 gravel, and once the turf is broken, the trees com- 

 mence to slide. On the highest ones, the rambler 

 often finds granite boulders, gray or pink, all care- 

 fully smoothed and with rounded edges. One 

 farm near Gait is kno^vn as "Granite Hill," and its 

 original owTier, with great toil, rolled the boulders 

 ofif his farm to form a fence, or rather a barricade 

 along the road. Under these alien rocks, when 

 spring comes. Blood Root, blue and yellow Violets, 

 and Trilliums grow. 



At the bottom of the ravine back of our house, a 

 path runs along an old watercourse. In spring it is 

 always very dark and silent there. The pines are 

 so thick and the groimd is deadened with their 

 brown needles, so we used to hurry through to look 

 for hepaticas on the sunny hill sides. But about 

 the 24th of May, the pale mauve flowers of the wild 

 geranium appear, and the sides of the ravine are 

 fluffy with Meadow Rue and the white foam of 

 Mitrewort. Strawberries ripen in open spaces 

 where the trees have been cut, and last summer one 

 sim-lighted space by a hemlock was haunted by 

 black-winged damsel flies with iridescent green 

 bodies. 



The path leads past an old lime kiln with oak 

 ferns among its mossy stones to a swamp full of 

 cedars, cinnamon fern, tamaracks and plumy grass. 

 All the old cedar stumps are overgrown with Linnsea 

 Gold Thread, Star Flower, and tiny green Mitre- 

 wort. On summer nights, sometimes a western 

 breeze carries the breath of the swamp, a mingle 

 perfume of ferns, sweet flag, and twin-flowers, up 

 over the hills, while Whip-poor-wills are calling. 

 The twin bells of the Linnsea and the white velvet 

 stars of the Partridge Berry Vine have the sweetest 

 perfume of any flowers I know. 



This swamp is a happy home for butterflies, 

 Silver Spots, Wood Satyrs and Nymphs, and Thistle 

 Butterflies. Along the wood road at the edge of 

 the swamp the earliest butterfly to be seen is the 

 Common Blue. This we used to call the "Hepa- 

 tica" butterfly, because its wings look like Hepatic a 

 petals that have floated away on the wind. Red 

 Admirals, Commas, the Camberwell Beauty, with 

 bedraggled wings at this season, and Tortoise Shells 

 are plentiful too in the warm spring sunshine. In 

 May and June dragonflies dart up and down this 

 road, and the air sparkles with the flash of their 

 shining wings. They are mostly Libellulas, very 

 tame and easy to catch. They would alight on 



my hat or shoulder if I stood quite still by their 

 favorite resting places. This road leads down to 

 several open fields along the river, and last June 

 over these fields coursed strong, swift-flying dragon- 

 flies that gave the collector a run for his money. 



It is pleasant to tramp through this swamp over 

 hummocks and rotten stumps, carefully avoiding 

 watercourses outlined with marsh-marigold leaves, 

 to the River. Here are thickets of grass and sedges 

 up to the shoulder, stunted willow bushes, balm of 

 gilead, and plantations of sweet flag and jewel weed. 

 The trampled mint delights the nose, as you push 

 through these plants to the water's edge, where 

 mayflies, mosquitoes, moths and damsel flies dance 

 over the brown flowing water. 



To describe something that has always been 

 familiar is not easy, but you may know my infatua- 

 tion for the Grand and its valley, when I say that 

 I was disappointed in the St. Lawrence. Not, of 

 course, in the wonderful stream itself, but in the 

 scenery along its banks. 



The Grand River has its origin in Luther's Swamp 

 in Dufferin County, but I have never seen the 

 stream until it reaches Elora, where it has made a 

 wonderful gorge for itself, cutting through layers of 

 limestone. The beauty of scenery at its junction 

 with the Conestogo is well known to artists, and 

 also that at Doon, where it winds along a very high, 

 steep bank, not unlike Scarboro Heights, only the 

 formation is more of gravel than of clay. But the 

 bank is cut into crevices, and the rambler looks 

 down over poplars, brambles, sumach and golden 

 rod to the curving river and can watch its silver 

 spirals for miles. On the top of the western bank 

 is Cressman's Bush, the only bit of virgin forest 

 left in the neighborhood. It has been saved from 

 the rapacity of sawmills largely through the efforts 

 of Homer Watson, the artist. While passing under 

 the shadows of these ancient hemlocks and elms, 

 the rambler gets a faint idea of the awfulness of a 

 great untouched forest. In the semi-dark no little 

 friendly wood plants can grow, and it is a relief 

 to come out of the shadow to an open space matted 

 with partridge-vine glowing with scarlet berries. 



From Gait on, the bed of the river is limestone, 

 rocky and broken for the most part, but two miles 

 above Glen Morris the formation known as Guelph 

 dolomite crops out in great stretches, level as a 

 floor. Where the current is swiftest this is cut into 

 narrow channels, anywhere from two to five feet 

 deep, and the joyous wader paddling along this 

 level floor with warm, brown water lapping against 

 bare feet, has to watch his step when he comes to 

 the brink of one of these channels, and if it is too 

 wide for a jump, must wander along its edge up or 

 down stream until a narrow place is discovered, or 

 a boulder bridging the channel. 



