A Window in Arcady 
February 22 .—One of my midwinter pleasures is 
going berrying. Upon one of the February holidays where¬ 
with a kindly Legislature has so bountifully blessed us, 
if a man will wrap his ulster about him and fare forth to 
the nearest bog in the pines, he will be rewarded with 
treasure of berries of many sorts and hues. Here will 
be found, its blushing honors still thick upon it, the cheer¬ 
ful tree which contributes so important a part to the 
decorations of Christmas—the evergreen holly, prickly of 
leaf and crimson of berry. Growing everywhere about 
the swamp’s edge are other sorts of holly, too, the most 
abundant being the smooth ilex, or inkberry, whose glossy 
foliage is so much prized by collectors of winter greenery 
that the gathering of it for shipment to the cities is a 
considerable industry. Its trim little bushes often cover 
hundreds of acres and vary in height from a foot or two 
in the open to six or eight feet in the swamps. In the latter 
situation it is a beautiful, slender shrub, particularly attrac¬ 
tive in winter, when the absence of leaf from most of its 
neighbors makes its shining evergreen the more noticeable. 
It bears a profusion of jet black berries, like bright, beady 
eyes, amid the leaves, or, to speak more prosaicly, like 
shoebuttons. They are worth tasting, so as to learn how 
bitter and astringent a pretty black berry can be, but once 
in a lifetime is enough. 
Another slip of a holly in the swamp is the deciduous 
ilex commonly known as the winterberry, because of the 
abundance of bright red berries which line its bare branches 
most of the winter. In February they look decidedly the 
worse for the wear, and such of them as now remain on 
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