All winter I had been promising myself the pleasure of watching the flowers unfold in the Bogs of Etchowog. On May 25th I reached the old farm on Mount Œta, having departed from New York on May 14th, fully equipped as a bog-trotter, with hunting-boots, rubber gloves, short skirts and vasculum. My route was through New Haven and Hartford, across the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts. On my way I stopped for a brief visit at the home of a friend in New Haven. In her garden, I found a corner of the Taconic woodlands awakening. Here, in line and on time, stood five modest Yellow Lady’s Slippers (_Cypripedium hirsutum_), members of the Orchid Family; while along the same border clusters of the Showy Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium reginæ_) were pushing their dewy-tipped beaks into light and sunshine. Although rather late in their blossoming, compared with the other sisters of this genus in New England, this species usually reaches its prime about June 20th. On the east side of the garden towered an ambitious row of ferns, some twenty root clusters or more, including many rare species. Here was an especially queer little strap-like leaf, which one would scarcely call a fern unless one were a professed fern-hunter. It is the rare Walking Leaf (_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_), the scientific name meaning a bent heap, and the appearance of the plant indeed is suggestive of the name. The frond is from four to twelve inches long, springing from a heart-shaped base and reaching out a long, narrow runner, which readily roots at the end again, and thence takes a step onward, and so on, until three or four steps are taken, often in this way forming a beautiful carpet for the cold gray lime rocks, which it prefers in its native haunts. The Walking Fern is shy in its habitat, seeking the most hidden crevices in ledges along our mountain sides. I have collected it in many dark ravines, as well as along dry, rocky ridges in the Hoosac Highlands. It takes kindly to cultivation for a season or two, and then dies out for want of its natural soil of limestone. [Illustration: =The Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium hirsutum._) This common _Cypripedium_ is closely allied with the Small Yellow Fragrant species—_Cypripedium parviflorum_—with which it grows in close comradeship, often intergrading. It is also nearly related with the European Yellow Cypripedium (_Cypripedium calceolus_), the first _Cypripedium_ described by Linnæus in 1740-1753.]