98 



BIRDS AND FLOWERS. 



cluster of deep blue berries, which had the bloom and 

 color of the grape. The leaves of the Indian cucum- 

 ber were quite withered, but one stalk supported a 

 large dark berry which seemed to bear as little rela- 

 tion to the yellowish green blossom as do the long 

 pods of the dogbane to the delicate pink bells which 

 produce them. We did not happen on this trip to 

 find any of the indigo blue clusters of the cat-brier, 

 which in June has good reason to be called the carrion 

 flower, but the writer has seen them this month on 

 Oak Hill and by the Contoocook River. Amid all the 

 blue berries of the fall, these are the ones most deeply, 

 darkly, beautifully blue. 



Beside the path grew the trailing vine of the hog 

 peanut whose small brownish or blackened pods at 

 once proclaim it as belonging to the tribe of Legurn- 

 inosae, otherwise the Pea and Bean family. The fa- 

 miliar checkerberry and partridge berry showed their 

 scarlet fruit, and we found some spotted berries of the 

 Maianthemum Canadense, whose conspicuous abun- 

 dance every spring should have earned it some English 

 name. 



The delicate yellow ribbons of the witch hazel are 

 about as welcome a sight as the declining year can 

 show. We found many branches with nuts on them, 



