THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
9 
the commonest of the woods flowers about Lewiston and 
Auburn, in Androscoggin County, but I have yet to meet 
with it in the vicinity of Rumford Falls in Oxford County, 
Another plant which I have met but once in Maine is 
the downy false foxglove {Gerard ia Hava) which I saw 
while on a launch exploring the shores of Lake Auburn, 
Androscoggin County. 
I do not say these plants cannot be found elsewhere 
than in the localities I have mentioned ; I simply state 
that in the ^^ears I have been interested in botany I have 
never been able to learn ot them elsewhere. 
Rumford Falls, Me. 
BY DR. WILLIAM WHITMAN BAILEY. 
HE student of nature is never without objects of 
study. Winter may narrow his horizon, but it does 
not wholly shut him in. From his very occupation he is 
an observer, and having once learned to keep his eyes 
open he uses them at all times. Out of doors there is 
much to see ; the tracery of branches, the arrangement 
and packing of buds, the drooping tassels, the persistent 
berries, the rattling oak leaf that will not fall. On every 
tree, too, on a damp day, we will note the green mosseSr 
Lift off the scale of ice, itself a wonder, from yonder pool,, 
and dip up some of the green floating filaments beneath. 
You will, when you return home, possess a microcosm 
wherein is enacted tragedy, melodrama and exquisite 
comedy. And as for beauty of form, what shall surpass 
these atoms which are alone revealed by the lens ? 
A walk in the wild woods is never without charm. 
Even in the winter we find it profitable to pay them an 
occasional visit. Nature never pleads the shallow and 
fallacious excuse of domestic engagements, but we have a 
suspicion that about this time she is not the least busy 
lady in the land. Think of all the sleeping buds she has 
to rock and fondle, and of all the multitudinous plans she 
is maturing, to delight and surprise us in the spring! 
Under the snow beds are myriads of slumbering blossoms, 
WINTER STUDIES. 
