The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-31
---------------------- A BIT OF A BROOK,

may walk along the bank of one every
 day in the year and each time enjoy
 some new and interesting experience.
 Mystery is always fascinating, and a brook is always mysterious. You may
 live beside one all your life, without the least danger of learning all It's se- crets. It Is much more satisfactory than pond in some respects, for the | greater depth and width of the latter often prevent one from examining it's interesting features. A brook you can jump across or wade across. and you
 can not only see every part of it. but
 you can see it thoroughly we'll.
 There Is scarcely a bird or heast in
 the forest, which you may not see along the bank of brook, for, besides 1 the many creatures which make their homes in and about it at all seasons
 nearly all the other wood-fo come
 there to drink at eas. once in the
 twenty-four hours. Even if the anil
 malS are not actually in view, you will generally find some indication of their
 recent presence. A scarlet feather
 floating in a sun-lighted eddy may mark the spot where tanager has
 been taking his morning dip; fresh | hoof- marks in the mud show where the deer have been down in the gray dawn
 to drink, or a newly opened mussel shell will tell you where and on what
 the muskrat dined last night,
 | And 1t Is surprising, too, to see what | large reatures often make their homes in tiny brook. Trout weighing pound or prem are frequently taken l from streams scarcely a foot in width, and few days ago l saw large suck CT which had been caught in steel | trap set for mink in a little stream no wider than handspan at the spot where the fish was taken.
 Last week I walked for perhaps a mile along the banks of a brook which l could and did step across whenever I l cared to do so. As l approached the little stream, I saw on the opposite bank a muskrat busy gathering a mouthful of green grass. She had evil dently just come from the brook, for the water was dripping from her long brown fur which cdung to her body and glistened with the moisture. She bit off several tufts Of grass, fairly close to the ground, and then came
 
 neat little sheaf the cut ends in her mouth and the blades all extending to the right She came down the bank, launched herself gently. and without sound and after swimming up stream for two or three years, dived and dis appeared. In less than two minutes she arose near the same spot, landed where she had entered the water, and again began to cut the grass blades in her business-like way. l was less than forty feet away, and it was about nine o'clock on dull morning, yet she seemed to have no suspicion of my presence When she dived the second time, l advanced about ten feet, and when she returned she paid no more attention to me than if l had been a stump. The next time she disappeared l crept into the alder bushes at the side of the stream and presently she arose to the surface and began to swim to the landing place, But she didn't reach it, for she either saw or sneled me and she sank out of sight without sound. She was evidently engaged in making a nest in burroW in the bank, and as the opening was under the water she was obliged to dive in order to reach it. A few days later, no doubt litter of young muskrats were born in that nest and if we had dug them out when they were less than day old, we should have found perhaps half dozen chunky little blind babies, weighing about quarters of an ounce apiece with very short, dark furry hair on the back and none at all un- derneath
 As l wandered along up the brook, startled frogs leaped into the water, | and after taking a few emphatic ! strokes, either disappeared under the | bank, or clung, half floating amongst | the water plants. Most often it was l green frog, colored with several shades | of olive, and sometimes, as he leaped, l he uttered a gulping cry At another | time it would be a little brown frog | which dived gracefully into the swift | running water, and twice or thrice I | saw that beautiful creature, the leopard | frog, with his yellow -marglned, oval | spots of olive green.
 Several times l saw small turtles wigwagging up and down the stream, | or trying to scramble out of sight be- uGdlI llle ltInS NHICll HullS bNtl llllp the water Some were spotted turtles, black with bright spots, and others l were the painted turtles, dark brown | with irregular yellow margins around | the plates of their shells. l plunged my arm into the water and captured one of | these; he was a large one, and proba- bly quite old, for there was moss grow ing on his back. In front, the edge of the shell was i-symmetrically toothed or spiked, the longest pair of spikes be- ing in the middle. This spiking is not common l think; it may possibly be peculiar to very old specimens.
 Rounding q bend of the stream I sur prised a great blue heron fishing but he slowly rose, and with his long legs trailing in his wake, Tapped away above the tree tops.
 All through the moist fields which 1