140 NATIVE BROOKS. 



another where Britton's mill once stood, a considerable lake would 

 be formed. In olden time just after the first pond was made, the 

 place was particularly favorable for a naturalist; for in these days 

 it is occasionly visited by the great blue herons, many rare plants 

 grow there and the phaeton butterfly flies feebly in June. Trout 

 have been caught in some numbers, even in recent years, and the 

 common sucker abounds. A night rambler with a lantern will dis- 

 cover, in the month of May, scores of them swimming up stream to 

 spawn, and when a shallow place is approached there is a scurry 

 among the fish accompanied by much splashing, as they make for 

 deeper water. 



About 179G, John McVicker, who lived in the Dongan mansion 

 constructed a canal through the valle}^ from Silver Lake, to bring- 

 more water for the mill on "Mill Creek," and it was not so long ago 

 that the trees were felled and turned into bungs for beer barrels at 

 the mill on Clove Pond. The brook once flowed through a deep ra- 

 vine and it is evident that there was less swamp then, than there is 

 to-day, for the numerous dams made to collect the water into ponds 

 have also caused the muggy meadows. 



The brook system, one branch of which drains the regions about 

 Four Corners, or Centre ville, as it used to be called, is quite exten- 

 sive, and its exact water-shed is hard to define. The main stream 

 forms for a considerable distance, the boundary line between Castle- 

 ton and Northfield, and in the days of Gov. Dongan was known as 

 Palmer's Run. It formerly received the entire drainage from the 

 Clove Valley, and its waters have at one time or another turned the 

 wheels of many different mills. A portion of its course is still through 

 pleasant pasture land, but a brook is so in sympathy with the season 

 that it depends largely when you see it, as to the impression it 

 leaves ; it seems in Winter hardly the one we knew in Summer days. 

 Occasionally as late as April, the more placid portions are frozen 

 over, the caddis fly larvae and water beetles may be seen on the 

 bottom through the ice, and it seems at such times nothing short of 

 a miracle when it is considered what a change a few days will bring 

 and how considerable that change really is. When Spring gets 

 fairly started it comes very fast indeed and one may almost give the 

 day of the month by the unfolding of the flowers of the Benzoin for 

 they keep so truly the schedule time of the season. 



