without the exposure. These, and other fool things that make up the personal equation, I have suffered from-sometimes. They make this deathless hunt "sporty," if you please; and the times when the hunt is a success compensate for all the quickly forgotten failures. But other wood-folk waited this one quiet May day. In the cool and moist spot where last summer I had enjoyed the curious little white tubes of the wintergreen, held so close to its own aromatic_scarlet berries of the previous year, I saw gleams of white and green, and a delightful perfume pervaded. "Can it be lily-of-the-valley?" I audibly wondered; but that would be out of the possibilities here. Two shining heart-shaped leaves clasped a tiny stem, on which rose between them the daintiest little raceme of fragrant white flowers; and this repeated so that the plant dominated the woods nook that was almost bare the preceding August. I knew it not; but the camera does not require names, and I secured my exposures and my specimens, to find, when the books were consulted, that I was admiring the Maianthemum, or so-called false lily-of-thevalley. So plenty and so thick were the flowers that I could without desecration select a cluster, which served for more than a week after we reached home to give us a sweet breath of Eagles Mere. The cinnamon ferns were proving the name with brown-coated, up-thrusting fronds, not yet curved to conventional fern lines. My camera tried for them; but I wasn't patient or careful enough, and while there resulted a good enough "negative," it was altogether negative pictorially, because I had not been sportsman enough to wait until the declining sun should add the proper edge of golden light to the brown. My fish got away! The "C 'trip-up" berries that all the summer were passing from green through scarlet to mature black, while the leaves changed from green to crimson, were now represented by a fine flat cyme of white flowers. Again a failure followed my camera hunt, notwithstanding that I hung determinedly to the tripod legs as they stood in two feet of water, while I focused and fussed, spread out flatly across a boat. Too hard; but I'll get them another time. Huckleberries (or blueberries, as the New Englanders call them), high and THE MOCCASIN-FLOWERS AGAINST THE OLD LOG BACK OF BIDE-A-WEE low, were this May day in flower, and the bees were busy getting their share of a good thing. This was easy for the camerist. No stooping or contriving was necessary, for the accommodating hemlock, and yet twiddling continually in a breeze I could not personally feel. Of the Fern Rocks and the Laurel Path on that May day; of the heavy clusters of the mountain ash overhang A BOY A HOLIDAY WITH A NE of the pleasantest possible the distance to end the journey. Every vacations, I think, is to cycle day, indeed, one may take a swim in across Switzerland. The pleas- some lovely lake or river, and this, with ure is doubled, of course, if two cyclers the cycling and the necessary walking go together. I am strongly inclined to in going up hill, affords abundant believe that the pleasure is trebled if one and varied physical exercise. Cycling of those two happens to be a boy, who in Switzerland is not all going up hill sees Switzerland for the first time. At by any means; for in almost every long all events, my pleasure was trebled when, ascent there are usually considerable after many summers passed more or less spaces of level road to vary the climb. among the glorious Alps, I took my little It is true, however, that one is apt to son, ten years old, across Switzerland, rest about half the time, under the shade from the Austrian frontier to Geneva. of some friendly tree or under the I recommend exactly that trip and ex- equally friendly veranda or summeractly that kind of company to other house roofs of the frequent wayside fathers. inns. Hence there is not much extra fatigue. But, nevertheless, one is always glad to get to his welcome resting-place for the night, and to enjoy eight hours. of sound sleep-what sleep 1-after a long day spent entirely in the open air. You can rent excellent wheels at Schaler's, in Ragaz. Try our itineraryby way of the Rhine valley and the high Appenzell country to Winterthur and Zurich; then around the lakes of Zurich, Zug, Lowerz, Lucerne, and Sempach, to Langenthal, Berne, Morat and Neuchâtel with their lakes, Lausanne, Nyon, and Geneva, with a bath in the splendid Lac Léman, and a glimpse of Mont Blanc in You rise every morning at six. After early coffee, you are on the road at seven. At about ten o'clock you are ready for a slight repast; at one for a midday meal; at four or thereabouts for a cup of tea |