[Illustration: =The Bogs of Etchowog, Showing the Dome in the Distance, Pownal, Vermont.= “There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us, that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time to time, travel the logger’s path and the Indian’s trail ... far in the recesses of the wilderness.”—THOREAU.] The name Ram’s-Head arose from the resemblance of this flower to that of a sheep’s or ram’s head, the conical or pouched-shaped shoe serving in certain positions to remind the early Canadian children of the noses of frisky lambs’ heads, while the twistings of both sepals and petals answered for the ram’s horns. This rare species was first collected in Canada near Montreal before 1808. In that year it was transplanted to English gardens by Messrs. Chandler and Buckingham, where they had opportunity to study it closely. For some time it was known as Chandler’s _Cypripedium_. Finally, Mr. Robert Brown of England published a description of North American Orchids in Aiton’s _Catalogue of Plants_, in 1813, and he must have learned what the children first named it in Canada and Vermont, for he gave it the Latin name, _Cypripedium arietinum_, which it has ever since borne in the science. _Arietinum_ signifies shaped like a ram’s head, and so one readily observes how the common names of plants suggest to the botanist the origin of the strange Latin names, which are in one sense but the explanations of the common names. I told Lorenna the story of this stray lamb, and she was as eager to find its trail as I was. The plant is shy at best, the flowers being of the most inconspicuous purple and white shades, found in cedar swamps and on the drier hillsides in mixed wood, of pine, chestnut, and birch. Truth to tell, I was not familiar with the appearance of the plant, nor did I know at what date to search for the blossoms. After leaving Lorenna, I followed the road homeward, reaching Mount Œta at six o’clock, somewhat dusty and ragged and tired. Old Bonny and the buggy were now suggested as assistants in my trips, when the folk observed my load of herbs and flowers. But bog-trotting in a buggy is certainly beyond the limits of my imagination. It did, however, at that tired moment seem a favorable project, for Bonny and the buggy could wait for me by the roadside while I plunged into the marshes to secure my treasures. It is true, as Thoreau writes: “we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side, from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps.”[8] III The Haunts of the Ram’s-Head Moccasin-Flowers