FIELD AND FOREST. 



M9 



allied genus, as Packard does not give 

 any of either, the larvae of which is not 

 aquatic. 



Harris says " some of the largest and 

 most beautiful of these flies live in rotten 

 wood in the larval state," but does not 

 state which genus. 



Some sixteen or seventeen years ago 

 I found an abundance of the aquatic 

 larvae in an old tub of rain water, but have 

 seen none since. 



Would like some information concern- 

 ing them. — N. Coleman. 



Berlin, Conn. 



The Professor. 



(Inscribed to Professor G .) 



Little cares he for the world, but sits 

 Till evening, from earliest dawn, 

 And figures a'ld etches and writes, 

 And the work goes bravely on ; 



And a monument grows, day by day, 

 That shall tell to the world his fame 

 When marble has crumbled away — 

 And he silently carves his name ; 



Carves it in]Nature's soft lines, 

 With a graver skilled and trite ; * 

 And the acid eats till the eye defines 

 The outline of promise in view. 



And the days\and years go. 4 fleeting by, 

 Tasks- are finished and new ones set ; 

 Still the end is not, nor draweth nigh- 

 There are pages unwritten yet. 



Pages unwritten that ever will be, 

 For the longest life is a spafn-ir. 

 That his dream may approach reality, 

 He is working while he can. 

 Washington, March, 1874. 



FIELD RECORD. 



Slow Growth of Forest Trees. — 

 I have lately taken the pains to count the 

 rings or growth in some logs that had just 

 been hauled from the woods at Grand Lake 

 Stream, and have been so much surprised 

 at the result that I must send you an ac- 

 count of it. 



I first selected three thrifty looking 

 spruce logs from among a large pile, and 

 squaring the butts, counted the rings of 

 growth from the center out to the bark. 

 Each year's growth consists of two layers, 

 a porous and a compact layer. In spruce 

 and some other trees these rings are very 

 distinct and easily counted, unless as some- 

 times happens, they are very thin, when 

 perhaps a microscope will be necessary to 

 make them distinguishable. The three 

 spruces examined were respectively 15, 

 16 and 1 8 inches in diameter, and I found 

 the layers of annual growth to count 182, 

 142 and 265. The largest of these had 

 therefore grown to a size of 18 inches in 

 265 years, giving an average of 14.72 

 years for each inch of diameter. The 

 fifteen inch stick had grown a little faster, 

 making an inch in 12.13 years. The six- 

 teen inch stick had done better than 

 either of the others, having made an aver- 

 age of one inch in 8.87 years. Th* total 

 age of the trees was of course some years 

 greater than the above figures indicate, for 

 the examination was made at the point 

 where it was cut, that is, about two or 

 three feet from the ground, and it takes 

 a wild spruce a good many years to grow 

 so high as that. 



I now turned to a fine looking hemlock 

 log, and counted its rings 15 feet from 

 the butt where the diameter was 22 inch- 

 es. I found 303 rings, and this tree 

 was therefore 15 feet or more in height in 



