AQUATIC INSECTS IN THE ADIRONDACKS 387 



Saranac Inn is very near the Champlain- Ontario divide, on a sandy, 

 undulating mountain upland in the midst of almost unbroken forest. 

 Round about it are numerous lakes, ponds, bogs and clear, sloiv flowing 

 streams, with here and there a low ridge built on outcropping gneiss, or 

 a sharply rising, densely wooded hill. There is more of sand and less 

 of rock, more of water area and less of mountain, than in most places in 

 the Adirondacks; and the descent of the streams is much more gentle. 



The forests are composed, as elsewhere, mainly of hemlock and balsam, 

 beech, yellow birch and maple, pine and spruce having been mainly 

 removed by lumbering, and oaks and our common nut-bearing trees never 

 having been present in the Adirondack woods. In the drier and denser 

 parts of the woods, where there is little undergrowth, the hobblebush. 

 Viburnum alni folium Marsh., spreads its broad leaves on strag- 

 gling branches to catch the scanty sunlight, while Indian pipe, 

 Monotropa uni flora Linn., star flower, Trientalis ameri- 

 cana Pursh, rattlesnake plantain, Pera mi um pu b escen s (Willd.) 

 MacM., Indian cucumber root, Medeola virginiana Linn., the 

 yellow Clintonia, C I i n t o n i a borealis Linn., the dwarf Smilacina. 

 Vagnara tri folia (L.) Morong, several pretty species of ground 

 pine, Lycopodium, and innumerable mushrooms spring from the 

 loose leaf mold. Recently burned tracts are mainly in the possession 

 of the bracken fern, Pteris aquilina Linn., the firevveed, 

 Chamaenerion angustifolium (Linn.) Scop., poplars and wild 

 cherry. In wet places in the woods occur stemless lady's slippers, C y p r i - 

 pedium acaule Ait., in the shadows, and in the openings grow cin- 

 namon fern, Osmunda cinnamomea Linn., and clumps of the 

 red elder berry, Sambucus pubens Mx., which in midsummer, 

 when the fruit is scarlet, are strikingly beautiful. In the bogs the trees 

 are balsam and tamarack in nearly clear patches; the shrubs are mainly 

 Labrador tea, Ledum groenlandicum Oeder, small cranberry> 

 Oxycoccus oxycoccus (Linn.) MacM., lambkill, Kalmia 

 angustifolia Linn, and the pale laurel, Kalmia glauca Ait.; 

 the herbs are mainly the universal sphagnum, the cotton grass, Erio- 

 phorumsp.?, the sundew, Drosera rotundi folia Linn., the 

 swamp five-finger, Comarum palustre L., and a variety of 

 orchids. The more strictly aquatic plants will be mentioned in connec- 

 tion with the situations in which they grew, and where studies were 

 made of the insect fauna. But I should not omit to mention in passing 

 that the exposed banks by every roadside were covered with mats of 



