My walks tend in this direction more frequently than in any other. Here the boys go too, troops of them, of a Sunday, to bathe and prowl around, and indulge the semi-barbarous instincts that still lurk within them. Life, in all its forms, is most abundant near water. The rank vegetation nurtures the insects, and the insects draw the birds. The first week in March, on some southern slope where the sunshine lies warm and long, I usually find the hepatica in bloom, though with scarcely an inch of stalk. In the spring runs the skunk cabbage pushes its pike up through the mould, the flower appearing first, as if Nature had made a mistake. It is not till about the 1st of April that many wild-flowers may be looked for. By this time the hepatica, anemone, saxifrage, arbutus, houstonia, and bloodroot may be counted on. A week later, the claytonia, or spring beauty, water-cress, violets, a low buttercup, vetch, corydalis, and potentilla appear. These comprise most of the April flowers, and may be found in great profusion in the Rock Creek and Piny Branch region. In each little valley or spring run some one species predominates. I know invariably where to look for the first liverwort, and where the largest and finest may be found. On a dry, gravelly, half-wooded hill-slope the birds-foot violet grows in great abundance, and is sparse in neighboring districts. This flower, which I never saw in the North, is the most beautiful and showy of all the violets, and calls forth rapturous applause from all persons who visit the woods. It grows in little groups and clusters, and bears a close resemblance to the pansies of the gardens. Its two purple, velvety petals seem to fall over tiny shoulders like a rich cape.