18 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [16:1— Jan., 1920 



June i, 1919. 

 Dear Mother: 



Yesterday was awfully hot and sunny so I kind of expected Sis 

 would suggest brook again and sure enough she did. She asked 

 me to meet her in front of Professor Brown's home out on Trip- 

 hammer Road and I wondered what she could want way out there. 



Well, what do you guess, mother? Our brook comes out of the 

 long pipe down in the meadow beside Mr. Brown's house! And 

 it comes out so fast that it had worn a great hole so we found large 

 pools here. There were whole crowds of water-striders looking 

 as though they were snow-shoeing to see who could go the fastest. 

 A meadow frog, all green and gold, jumped along the edge with a 

 splash that made us jump. We nearly missed seeing a crayfish 

 because it was mud-colored and crawled along among the muddy 

 stones. What queer looking animals they are, all legs and not 

 much else. I poked him and he napped his tail under and shot 

 backward like a streak of nothing. We turned over some of the 

 stones and found queer flat-looking bugs with long hairs for tails 

 and small legs. They were sticking close to the stones. They're 

 called stone-fly larvae. Larvae is a queer name for young, 

 meaning baby stone-flies, I guess. There were a lot of mush- 

 rooms around the upper edge of the brook that looked like sponges 

 and are good to cook and eat so sister picked them. 



The old goldenrod plants are mixed in with the new all over the 

 marsh and I noticed a lot of round holes on their stems. I showed 

 one to Sis. She opened it and there was a fat worm curled up 

 asleep in its round nest. It was a larvae, no, larva, for a singular 

 number, sleeping and growing up. On one side of the ball there 

 was a tiny hole with bevelled edges so that the plug in it could be 

 pushed out easily when the larva was grown up into a moth. 



Pretty soon the brook became wider and had to run down a 

 pretty steep grade. Its bottom was filled with stones covered 

 with green, slippery stuff called " algae." We noticed holes or 

 pockets in the edges and managed to poke out some little black 

 water-beetles that were hiding . If I ever get my map done you'll 

 see that there are a lot of small trees and bushes along here, — small, 

 young elms, tiny, Scotch pines, raspberry bushes and lots of choke 

 cherry trees in blossom. There was one poplar tree called a cotton- 

 wood. It had feathery, sticky flowers or catkins that flew all over 

 everything so no one wants this kind for their front lawn. By 



