A Firm Seat 167 



Two damsel flies land on the masses of tiny duckweed 

 plants floating near the boat. At first I do not know whether 

 they are feeding or resting. The fact that they make short 

 moves from one part of the mat to another seems to indicate 

 the former. The male is quite gay with blue marks on the 

 head and at the end of the abdomen. The female can easily 

 be distinguished by its plain straw color. Then they fly to a 

 lily pad and I watch the female reach under the edge of the 

 leaf with its abdomen curved, evidently for the purpose of 

 depositing eggs. A bursting bubble of marsh gas agitates the 

 water and sends them into quick flight, but they do not fly 

 far and I watch them repeat the process. 



The marsh is no exception to the rule that most communi- 

 ties have their distinctive sounds, so that by listening to the 

 combination it is possible to place not only the area but the 

 season as well. This marsh, with its mixture of natural and 

 man-made sounds, is especially distinctive. Such things as 

 the roar of planes warming up at the Sand Point Naval Air 

 Station, the call of the coxswain as he raps with his blocks to 

 set the pace for a University shell, the hourly blast of the 

 ferry whistle— all help to identify the location. When man- 

 made sounds are combined with bird songs and cries and the 

 splashes of the mammals, any sound detective (if there is 

 such a specialist in the sleuthing profession) could easily 

 make a positive identification. Today there is no activity in 

 the stadium, on the practice field, or in the shells, but loud 

 sounds of bridge siren and bells, the horn of the ferryboat, 

 the planes at Sand Point, and the campus chimes contribute 

 all necessary information for placement. The total absence 

 of general bird song, together with the cry of a yellow-legs 

 which never appears until early in August, and the loud- 

 speaker of the summer excursion boat which operates be- 

 tween Lake Washington and Puget Sound, places the season 

 of the year as summer and the month as August. 



I pull out a strand of water smartweed which projects 



