It never pays to be a clam. It is very meet, right, and the bounden
duty of every quadruped, biped and decapod to prey upon the clam.

Farther down is a sandy hollow which was deep under water in the great
January freshet. That freshet deposited a new layer of sand and also
bushels of clam and snail shells of all sizes and species. They lie so
thick they may be taken up by the shovelful. Two or three dead fish
are also found. What a fine fossiliferous stratum will be found here
about a hundred million years from now!

In March the rains and the melting of the "robin snows" soften the
leathery lichens and their painted circles on the trees and rocks vary
from olive gray and green to bright red and yellow. They revel in the
moist gray days. And the mosses which draw a tapestry of tender velvet
around the splintered rocks in the timber quarries and strangely veil
the ruin of the fallen forest kings,--how much they add to the beauty
of the landscape in the interval between the going of the snow and the
coming of the grass! The rich dark green of the common hair-cap
clothes many a bank with beauty, the dense tufts of the broom moss
hide the ruin and assuage the grief where an exalted forest monarch
has been cast down by the storm. The silvery Bryum shows abundantly on
the sandy fields and the thick green velvet mats of the Anomodon creep
up the bases of the big water elms in the swamps. The delicate
branchlets of the beautiful fern moss are recompense for a day's
search, and the bright yellow-green Schreber's Hypnum, with its red
stems, is a rich rug for reluctant feet. The moist rocks down which
the water trickles into the ravine below are stained green and orange
by the glossy Entodon. These patient mosses cover wounds in the
landscape gently as tender thoughts soothe aching voids left by the
loss of those we love. They lead us into the most entrancing bits of
the woodland scenery--shaded rills, flowing springs, dashing cascades,
fairy glens, and among the castellated rocks of the dark ravines.
Their parts are so exquisitely perfect, almost they persuade the
nature-lover to degenerate into a mere naturalist, walking through the
woods seeing nothing but sporophytes through his lens, just as a rare
book sometimes causes the bibliophile to become a bibliomaniac,
reading nothing but catalogues. It is a credit to be a bibliomaniac
provided one is a bibliophile as well. And the best moss naturalists
are they whose hearts re