into the water with a splash. In the quiet little bayous the minnows
are lively, and tracks upon the soft mud show that the mink has been
watching them. A pile of neatly cleaned clam shells is evidence that
the muskrat has had a feast. There is a huge clam, partly opened, at
arm's length from the shore. We fish it out and pry it open farther;
out comes the remains of the esculent clam, and we almost jump when it
is followed by a live and healthy crawfish.

It never pays to be a clam. It is very meet, right, and the bounden
duty of every quadruped, biped and decapod to prey upon the clam.

Farther down is a sandy hollow which was deep under water in the great
January freshet. That freshet deposited a new layer of sand and also
bushels of clam and snail shells of all sizes and species. They lie so
thick they may be taken up by the shovelful. Two or three dead fish
are also found. What a fine fossiliferous stratum will be found here
about a hundred million years from now!

In March the rains and the melting of the "robin snows" soften the
leathery lichens and their painted circles on the trees and rocks vary
from olive gray and green to bright red and yellow. They revel in the
moist gray days. And the mosses which draw a tapestry of tender velvet
around the splintered rocks in the timber quarries and strangely veil
the ruin of the fallen forest kings,--how much they add to the beauty
of the landscape in the interval between the going of the snow and the
coming of the grass! The rich dark green of the common hair-cap
clothes many a bank with beauty, the dense tufts of the broom moss
hide the ruin and assuage the grief where an exalted forest monarch
has been cast down by the storm. The silvery Bryum shows abundantly on
the sandy fields and the thick green velvet mats of the Anomodon creep