I have spoken of a monstrous water-snake. This serpent has long been a feature of the pond, and, when in the upland fields laying its eggs it probably smelled the water, and so turned northward toward the lilies, instead of returning southward to the splatter-docks in the meadows. I have cornered the creature several times, and always found it exceedingly surly. To be held in the hand it considers an insult, and bites with a rapidity of motion of the head that is marvelous. Its teeth are pretty sharp, too, and bring blood when the hand or bare arm is struck; but then its violent efforts are so amusing that one forgets all about the pain. The snake loves a moonlit night, and at such times occasionally floats upon the surface of the pond without making the slightest motion, and a stranger would suppose it to be a small limb of a tree. This apparent rest, however, has a purpose behind, and is, I think, connected with the capture of food; or so it has appeared to me on several occasions. That the several turtles of our meadow tracts should find their way to the pond was not surprising, for even those most strictly aquatic take long overland journeys in spring and early summer; but I did not look for fish, as none could come down the brook, and I as little supposed that any could climb fifty feet above the river and reach it; and then they would have, besides, to jump over the dam or waddle around it. And I saw no fish until weeks after the pond was completed. I stocked it with carp, and then, lo! there were mud-minnows in these shut-off waters. Of course, they were there before the dam was built, and now they are too well established to be exterminated. I can only hope they will not find the carps’ eggs, or feed exclusively on the young fish. What, then, have I accomplished by damming a little brook? I have changed to a watery wilderness the corner of a one-time dusty field. I have brought representatives of many forms of animal life, hitherto unknown to the spot, to a prosy nook, and so changed the whole face of Nature. The very weeds are even now different from those of former years, and hosts of insects that had not been here before now fill the air and make it to tremble with their tireless wings. And to the rambler, after long tramping in dusty fields or along the no less cheerless highway, here is a pleasant spot indeed, one that epitomizes half the country round, and offers, too, many a suggestive novelty. So much by day; but let him tarry until the gloaming, and when the lilies have folded he will catch, what is even better, glimpses of the night-side of Nature. The Herbs of the Field.