Io SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF TURNER’S LAKE 
lake. The surface of the lake is only a few feet above tide; its bot- 
tom fully forty feet below. 
‘Along the west shore in stretches of comparatively shallow water 
and near the outlet, bedrock reaches the surface; at these places and 
along both banks where the waves have cut away the turf, the rocks 
are sometimes pitted as if by action of some strong solvent. The 
water itself is amber except in the shallows because rich in organic 
materials derived both from the sphagnum bogs that feed the inlet 
and from decaying vegetation. Huge cedar trunks that dwarf the 
living trees of the shores sprawl over the bottom, their skeleton arms 
hairy with trailing filaments of algae and blotched by livid green of 
sponges. 
In its organic life the lake is perhaps more notable for its lack of 
many common plants and animals than for the presence of unusual 
forms. No cat-tails are there to hide the floating nest of the grebe 
and invite the marsh wren, nor duckweed greening the surface in the 
quiet coves; no waving ribbons of eelgrass nor rough-stemmed 
stoneworts or pondweeds common to muddy bottoms. In the shallow 
areas near either end of the pond the waterlilies float their broad 
fans or, caught by the breeze, roll them in glistening cylinders. Here 
too the floatingheart dangles its spur-like roots and rides at anchor. 
No pickerel weed blues the shores with its stiff pikes or arrowhead 
brandishing broad blades, but in their places a few burweeds and 
sedges, loosestrife and woolgrass. The leathery mantle of Nostoc 
blankets the sandy bottom at the north, punctured here and there by 
some stiff stemmed rush; and in scattered patches the pipewort 
spreads its myriad-pointed stars. 
In summer and autumn the birds of the lake are largely borrowed 
from the sea. Herring gulls gather almost daily in the south shal- 
lows to cleanse themselves of the sea-rime in the soft waters; they 
drop urchins on the rocks and leave the shells of crabs to bleach in 
the crevices; or a sea dick varies his diet by a cruise over the shal- 
lows; Ospreys visit the pond but leave the small prey to the king- 
fishers. : 
No turtles were found in the lake nor were they reported by those 
who fished its waters; frogs are infrequent, for only three were seen 
and those near the swamp from which they may have come. Even the 
fish are few in kinds though our nets and traps yielded a proper 
quota. Eels abound but they are mostly small, and numerous 
sticklebacks found our traps in twenty feet of water; these and the 
smelt and the introduced salmon were all that were taken. 
