In the middle of this swamp an island arose, over which grew willow bushes and tamarack spires, interspersed by grape-vines. I crawled through the bushes without finding a flower worthy of description. Surrounding the edges of this island, tall spikes of the Fragrant Northern Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_) rose above the water-soaked sphagnum. I was able to reach a few of them, then sought the _terra firma_ of the tangled swamp beyond. I ran great risk, since I was forced to wade the soaking bogs where the cat-tail flags were dense. I managed to jump from hummock to hummock, not waiting for the grass to grow beneath my feet. Beyond I struggled through the low tangled trees covered with the Wild Frost Grape-Vines or Possum-Grape (_Vitis cordifolia_), amid tamaracks, swamp-maples, poison-sumach and ivy-vines. I observed many enormous colonies of Pitcher Plants, still in bloom in the shades. Finally I reached the muddy bank of Ball Brook, ragged, dirty, and tired. I found the stream impassable because of the mud. Even old Major had sense enough not to go too near the stream. I was forced to make my way, as well as possible, back to the mill, among piles of old tinware that had been accumulating since the early Revolutionary days of 1777. Once out of this place, it was a pleasure to enter the open Pitcher Plant Meadow, where I searched for Pogonias and Limodorums without success. I circled about the swamp and turned away from it at the north, climbing over the hill above the Washon Bridge, toward Cranberry Swamp. Blue jays were screaming loudly, and catbirds were mewing in the bushes near the pools. I found the path near the pond, which led through luxuriant ferns to the shades of pines beyond. Here the ground was carpeted with fragrant needles and cones. Bull-frogs croaked hoarsely in the swamp beneath the lily-pads, and over the hillside crept yards of the evergreens known as Ground-Pine (_Lycopodium obscurum_) and Club-Moss (_Lycopodium Selago_), known to the Greeks as Wolf’s-Claw. This moss takes hold of the earth with its small roots, like the claws of a wolf. This corner of Etchowog was the home of the mosquito, and I was obliged to use a bough of sweet-fern to keep the pests from devouring me. “Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing, Does murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about, ... Thou’rt welcome to the town—but why come here?”[46] XV White Oaks and Gregor Rocks I can recall to mind the stillest summer hours, in which the grasshopper sings over the mulleins, and there is a valor in that time the bare memory of which is armor that can laugh at any blow of fortune.—THOREAU, _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_.