134 AT THE NORTH OF BE ARC AMR WATER. 
hours in his form among the swamp evergreens. 
Gnome-hunting has been my pastime, and so 
low is our human estimate of the character and 
usefulness, of these tiny creatures that my con¬ 
science has not given the faintest bit of a twinge 
when I have brought home dead gnomes from 
field, meadow, mountain, and forest. Our 
gnomes are not all of one kind, and when I 
started with my game-bag in the September sun¬ 
light I did not feel sure what manner of elf I 
might bring home with me. Setting out early 
on the morning of the 12th, I dashed the dew 
from the brakes as I crossed an open pasture 
on the way to my lonely lake. The brakes were 
growing brown, yet we had had no frost, and 
the equinox was still ten days distant. The 
sumacs were gorgeous in green, scarlet, and or¬ 
ange, waiting for the first rain or wind to hurl 
to the ground half their gay leaves. As they 
hung motionless in the sunlight, they seemed 
brilliant enough for the tropics. Asters and 
goldenrod joined them in painting part of the 
picture with high colors, and so did the maples 
on the high ledges of the mountain where a 
bear-liunter’s fire raged last October. A bit of 
woodbine climbing up the maple trunk gleamed 
like flames, mountain-ash berries were full of the 
same fire, and the clustered fruit of the hobble- 
bush glowed in the midst of its maroon and 
crimson foliage. 
