200 



liour's ramble' brought them to the gravelly shorets of Bar- 

 tholomew's Pond, it having neither inlet nor outlet, yet 

 always well supplied with clear pure water, so limped indeed 

 that the queen of the waters the scented white pond lily, 

 scarcely finds any opportunity for establishing itself; and 

 even^ the water target with its mimic peltate and purple foli- 

 age and the finely attenuated-leaved, grassy Potamogeton are 

 only occasionally to be seen. There is a tradition that a 

 rare species of some sort of fish was its only inhabitant, 

 small and fitted for the scanty food Avhich its waters supplied ; 

 but a mistaken policy introducing the voracious pickerel has 

 extirpated the aboriginal fishy triljes ; the more to be re- 

 gretted as 'said pickerel are of the most exiguous proportions 

 from like scarcity of food, ."^ome very respectable horn- 

 pouts can be drawn from the more muddy parts of the bot- 

 tom ; yet in fishes we deem this little sheet of water rather 

 deficient. At some seasons of the year a considerable mar- 

 gin or beach is to be had for perambulating and investiga- 

 ting its limits, while at others the waters flow closely to the 

 steep and wooded rise of land which hems it in. 



In hot siimmer-days the pretty little yellow flowered hedge- 

 hyssop ( Gratiola aure(b) may be seen in abundance among 

 the straggling vines of the cranberry growing between the 

 black stained stones. Even these blackened pebbles and 

 stones are incrusted with vegetation and bear upon their 

 surfaces the pitch colored Verrucaria umbrina or some allied 

 species of semi-aquatic lichen. Viewed from the heights of 

 the surrounding cliffs, when scarcely a ripple plays over the 

 surface, the sheet of water reflects the lovely blue sky, or 

 impresses with evanescent beauty the shadows of the trees, 

 or becomes resplendent with the tinted clouds of the even- 

 ing sky. One of these crags and the loftiest of them, is 

 designated as Prospect Hill, and a not difficult path brings 

 ,. you to a succession of terraced and bare rocky platforms, 

 where the reindeer-moss and other similar lichens renders 

 the surfaces hoary and gray, as with age. At one point and 



