
          [Norm?] or when the ground was covered with
snow I might hope to keep you [?] in the
house for a day or two which in fine weather
in June I might not so easily accomplish. I have
really done nothing the last summer- with regard to the [?]
unknown Tewksbury aquatic- I fear that it will turn out after
all to be some common thing- I wenth to Tewksbury during [?] summer
principally to decide something about it & hunted about in the
water the whole of one morning without finding a single
specimen. I was unwilling however to give it up & tried again
the next day & at length found it but from the
state in which I found it I strongly suspect that it is
merely a young plant with the shell still attached to
it-in one specimen there was but one leaf & that very
minute & the [?] still more so & on picking up a
handful of mud in order to [?] the roots of another
I found in the mass. I should think as many as fifty
seeds- precisely resembling what I had supposed the fruit
of the plants-are you acquainted with the germination
of the Villarsia? If I am correct in supposing it
a young plant it is still interesting, affording a singular
& to me quite novel form of germination in
        