The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-09-12
PONDS AND sWAMPs.

A pond, particularly if portion of or the margin is swampy, has great possi- bilities for the nature student. There seems to be no limit to the variety of living creatures which he may find there in the course of a year. In this respect pond is superior even to a brook >'e .s+s
 live near such pond, and visit it often. It has its counterpart in any one of ten thousand little ponds throughout the country, yet the United States gov ernment does not employ number of clerks sufficient to record the business which is. transacted within sight of it's banks. No matter how hot or how cold the weather; no matter how dull things are in the country round about here there is always something inter- esting to be seen or heard. Here came in the early spring, to see the first, and seemingly the brightest, of the marsh
 narigolds, reflected in the cold clear water, and to lift from the shadows masses of transparent frog spawn, in which may be seen scores of tiny black specks, which some day will be frogs. Here too. I come at night to hear the lonely bittern calling his mate, in voice which sounds like water beating against the mouth of a cavern. And later in the year find their nest in the marsh near by, a handful of coarse grasses, with four or five huff eggs
 And so all through the summer. when the turtles sit in rows on the half7 sunken logs and when the frogs squat upon the lily pads, until the fall, when the muskrats build their winter houses on the mud flats. and when the black duck and the wild geese drop in to spend few days on their way to the south. Nor is business suspended in the ! winter, for then under the shelving ice along the bank, mark the tracks of | the mink, and when see between them the tiny footprints of mice, know pretty we'll what he was looking for.
 | Amongst the other inhabitants or this pond are some huge snapping turtles, whose age is the subject of frequent 1 discussions at the nearest country grocery. Some bear upon their shells certain dates and other marks, which it is claimed were carved more than fifty years ago. It is not often they are seen, but now and then one of these old vil- Hans will raise his great snake-i like head above the surface of the pond, and blink pair of the coldest, cruelest eyes which ever disfigured the head of a reptile. Nothing in the pond is sacred to these hardened old sinners. No doubt they live largely on fish, but young muskrats and ducklings are often jerked below the surface of the pond to rise no more, and wild mice, which some times swim across, are foolhardy, to say the least. Last June was walking along the bank of little steam which flows through a meadow and into a pond. when my attention was attracted by the peculiar nlove- ment of a patch of waving grass. It
 was easy to see that the wind had lit- tie to do with it. so ran over to in- vestigate. In the middle of a good sized depression caused by the flatten.
 ing down of the grass, stood a giant snapping turtle, weighing fifty pounds if an ounce, should say, and with great horny jaws agape, ready for business
 I guessed that it was probably a female on her way to deposit her eggs in the
 sand somewhere, so decided not to in-
 terrupt her. Instead, retired to dis. l Continued OH Fifth Page.)