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FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April ii, 1908. 
l|; , 
It is pleasant after knocking about for a 
month or two down South in the cold and the 
storms to feel that all that sort of thing is over, 
that the corner is turned and only summer seas 
lie between one and port. So we left the foul 
weather birds, the sailing albatrosses and Cape 
pigeons, and others that skim above the stormy 
billows, and came once more to the realm of the 
squawking, white tropic bird, phiethon, that lives 
in the fine weather of lower latitudes, flies high 
and flaps its wings as a civilized bird should. 
Sometimes at sea a school of por¬ 
poises come to the ship and play about 
her bows, swimming and breaking 
water so close under the martingale 
that a man can harpoon one from there. 
The commonest porpoise in Cape Horn 
waters is a very pretty black and white 
striped animal with a rather round 
head and protruding lips. They are 
reputed better eating than other kinds. 
One of them was secured in the South 
Pacific, and what a feast we had. It 
was my first taste of porpoise, which 
is both like fish and like red-meat. The 
liver is said to be almost or quite in¬ 
distinguishable from pig’s liver, and 
that may very well be true, but as the 
writer has never eaten the latter article 
he is no judge. Another larger, darker, 
slimmer porpoise was harpooned later 
in the voyage, north of the line, and I 
should hate to say that this was any 
less good to eat than the first. 
A few days before Christmas we sighted land, 
the land that the ship had been working toward 
so many weeks, and one afternoon sailed past 
beautiful headlands, into smooth water, and 
when the breeze from shore brought rank, 
strong, spicy, the odor of tropical vegetation, of 
a land where purifying cold of winter never 
comes, we realized that the voyage was at an end. 
Once more in from the deep sea, the same old 
sea, deep blue out there beyond the reefs, diffi- 
ly as a dream. No, it did not seem real, some 
day one must wake again to contend with a 
world of sails and winds and rolling sea. 
Early Spring Flowers. 
The earliest flower to start in winter is the 
swamp cabbage, or skunk cabbage, so called from 
its pungent odor. The growing tops of this 
plant are often found sticking up through th^ 
BLUETS. 
cult and fascinating as ever, guarding its mys¬ 
teries. Back into the world, but days, weeks, 
months must go by before this world would 
seem altogether real again, sleeping cars, the 
lights and bustle of the metropolis, gaiety, mu¬ 
sic, events that slipped by as quickly and smooth¬ 
WOOD ANEMONE. 
frozen swamps or the light snow in the dead of 
winter, and in our northern swamps they begin 
to grow almost always as early as late February 
or early March. Sometimes in warm spots it is 
found in bloom before the ice. has all gone, and 
often the flowers appear in spring, while the 
fruit of the past autumn is still scattered over 
the ground. 
This fruit by the way is a favorite food of 
our game birds, both quail and partridge eating 
it greedily. In the autumn the latter bird often 
tears away the white spongy covering which con¬ 
ceals the clusters of fruit and picks out the un¬ 
ripe berries, if they may so be called. About 
the middle of winter—the top of the plant hav¬ 
ing died down—little piles of these berries may 
often be seen through the swamp, and anyone 
who does not recognize them can readily tell 
what they are by breaking one in two, and smell ¬ 
ing of it, when the mephitic odor is at once evi¬ 
dent. The flowers of the skunk cabbage entirely 
cover the round mass called spadix, in which 
later the fruit matures. The pollen from these 
little flowers is carried away to fertilize other 
plants by small flies which seek the shelter of 
the hood or spathe of the skunk cabbage blos¬ 
som for rest and warmth. These becoming cov¬ 
ered with pollen from the flowers, transport it 
to other plants. 
The hepatica or liverwort—so called from the 
fancied resemblance of its leaf to the shape of 
the liver—is commonly regarded as the earliest 
flower of spring, and thus occupies a warm spot 
in the hearts of all those who love outdoor 
things. It is a plant of wide range, and is often 
seen in bloom on southern slopes very early in 
April, where it grows among the dead leaves 
which are piled up there in windrows in the 
edge of the woqds. It is a charming delicate 
flower, poised on a slender fuzzy stem, and by 
some people is thought to be as fully entitled 
to the name windflower as the true anemone. 
The flowers are of various colors, some white, 
some lilac and others pinkish. 
In old days the spring snipe shooter was gen¬ 
erally the first man to see the bloodroot, whose 
beautiful white flowers, supported on fleshy 
stems, line the banks just above the wet 
meadows on the river’s edge. In damp threaten¬ 
ing weather these flowers are usually closed, but 
in clear, dry, warm weather they are wide open. 
The spring snipe shooter of old times knew this, 
and when he saw the bloodroot blos¬ 
soms wide open he went out with a 
high heart, because he knew that then 
the snipe would be lazy and would be 
likely to lie until he got close to them, 
and would give him a good shot. 
If the bluets are tiny little flowers, 
they make up for their small size by 
their numbers, and sometimes one may 
look over a field which seems like a 
smooth lake reflecting the color of the 
bright blue spring sky. As the flowers 
grow more mature they become white, 
and then may be compared to newly 
fallen snow. 
Other early flowers of course are the 
wood anemones, of which there are 
many sorts; each one—the discoverer 
will think—more beautiful than the 
last one seen. They are delicate little 
flowers and do not bear gathering, 
drooping or fading almost at once. Let 
them stay where they are, for they are more 
beautiful in such situations than tney can be 
anywhere else. 
In wet places on the edges of swamps grows 
the dog tooth violet, also called adder’s tongue, 
or yellow trout lily, whose bell-like blossom and 
beautiful colors make a charming picture. 
About the same time with the dogtooth violet, 
or a little later, you will find growing along in 
the very wet swamps that brilliant relative of 
the buttercup, variously known as marsh mari¬ 
gold, cowslip or caltha. Its broad green leaves 
MARSH MARIGOLD. 
and showy gold-colored flowers hang over th 
brook and make a startling picture. 
Few things are more delightful than to star 
out on an exploratory trip on a day in earl 
spring to find out what flowers are in bloom am 
what birds have come. 
