OUR EXCHANGE TABLE. 
99 
a more prudent distance above him. Seeing the green- 
coated rascal sitting there demurely, no one would have 
dreamed that he had ever aspired to call a dragonfly his 
own. Then came a puddle butterfly and alighted on an 
alder branch, something more than a foot from the ground. 
It was a poor, bedraggled Colias, that evidently had seen 
better days ; but a frog is never over particular, and this 
frog was hungry. So he slid gently down the bank and 
came across the brook with a single impulse, his long legs 
reaching far behind, the entire creature looking more like 
a fish than a frog. There was pity for the unsuspecting 
victim, and an impulse to interfere ; but one must leave Na¬ 
ture’s hungry, savage children to themselves if he would 
learn their ways. The frog came softly under the alder 
branch, leaped upward, this time without a cry, and swal¬ 
lowed the butterfly so quickly that one could not see it 
done. Then he splashed heavily into the water, swam 
leisurely back and resumed his station. Philosophical old 
frog ! He had wasted no time in grieving over a disap¬ 
pointment, or in crying for that which was beyond his 
reach. 
As I pitched my alders over the pasture fence and turned 
homeward, the frog was sitting demurely on the bank, the 
muskrat had just returned from another anxious foray, 
the dragonfly was circling gracefully about, and the gnats 
were dancing in the sunshine. All Nature seemed uncon¬ 
scious that a butterfly had disappeared. 
Our Exchange Table. 
In the October Fern Bulletin Alvah A. Baton of Sea- 
brook continues his interesting studies of the genus Equi- 
setum, the present paper being devoted to B. litorale 
Kuhl. ‘ 
The Fern Bulletin , with its next number, enters upon 
