winter day flies and gnats are seen by streams. In the warm, sunny days of
late September, numbers of some species of ephemerae were seen on the
sedges and willows, with black bodies and gauzy wings, which the dace and
bleak were swallowing eagerly, in quite summer fashion. The water is now
unusually clear, and as the fish come to sun themselves in the shallows
every shoal can be seen.

Among the typical Thames-valley flowers, all of which would be the better
for protection, are the very rare soldier orchis (_Orchis Militaris_)
and the monkey orchis (_Orchis Simia_), the water-snowflake, the
_hottonia_, or water-violet, the water-villarsia, more elegant even
than the water-lilies, the flowering rush, with a crown of bright
rose-pink flowers. The two orchids named are very interesting plants. Of
the monkey orchis Mr. Claridge Druce says in his "Flora of Oxfordshire"
that it has become exceedingly scarce, not so much from the depredations
of collectors, but from the fondness of rabbits for it and the changes
brought about by agriculture. The soldier orchis is very rare indeed; both
are only found in a few woods in the Thames valley, and possibly in Kent.
The bladderworts fade instantly, and are not much interfered with, and
though the fritillaries are picked for market, the roots are not dug up
because that would injure the meadow turf in which they grow, and business
objections would be raised.




INSECTS OF THE THAMES


Except among the select few, generally either enthusiastic boys or London