If the reader were to stand on the bank of the little pond early in the morning, his attention would doubtless be drawn exclusively to the lilies, and the skimming barn-swallows or fiery dragon-flies that outspeed them would not be seen. Here and there the waters would be rippled, but only the broad leaves of the lotus trembling in the breeze would catch his eye, yet that ripple marks the progress of a monstrous water-snake. Charmed by the beauty of a trailing vine that rests like an emerald serpent on the pond’s placid surface, the deep tones of enormous frogs will be unheard, yet here are giants of their race that quickly found the spot, many of them larger and more musical than their brethren in the meadows. By the side of a miniature lily from Siberia, scarcely an inch in width, may pop up the rugged head of the ferocious snapping-turtle, but the onlooker will see only a bit of wood floating in the water, so absorbed is he in the wonderful display of aquatic bloom. Now, this is not an imaginary case, but the record of more than one actual occurrence, and I lay stress upon the particulars because it shows how readily we overlook so much that is well worth seeing. These few square rods of shallow water go not so much to make a lily-pond, although this was my sole intention, as to form a zoölogical garden on a quite extensive scale. Let us consider now some of these unbidden and unwelcome occupants of the pond. Of the mammalian life, first in bulk as well as destructiveness is the musk-rat. It is not so much of a wonder that these animals so soon appeared. They are given to nocturnal wanderings. This is the night-side of their nature that we must keep in mind. In this case they had but to follow the windings of the brook for a thousand yards from a creek, where they have always been, to reach the pond. The curious feature of their coming was, that in so short a time they had securely established themselves. They seem to have said to themselves, “This is to our liking,” and without delay dug their underground retreats. They considered the pond their own, and in one night the smooth and sodded bank was marred by a line of treacherous hills and hollows. Then broad leaves and thick stems of lilies began to float about, cleanly cut from the parent plant. The culprits were well known, yet days and weeks passed without one being seen. But a single moonlit night sufficed to tell me what I had guessed: their hours of activity are when men are supposed to be asleep. The wary mink, too, came nightly to the pond, and, if it fished in the waters, it was for the many frogs that abounded, but I found no mangled remains of the old fellows that out-croaked the myriads in the meadows.