ALICE ON THE WONDERLAND TRAIL

There are wild animals along the Wonderland Trail. But not a one molested Alice on her journey. Not a cougar jumped at her, not a coyote howled at her,--and the mosquitoes were all at Paradise Valley, where food was more plentiful. But the wild flowers, they fairly surrounded her.

In the woods crouch tawny tiger-lilies, yellow and black. Coiled in the path lurk rattle-snake plantains. Color and pattern give them their names. Serene in the swamps are skunk-cabbages, offensive only when picked. Red and yellow monkey-flowers (whoever saw a yellow monkey?) grow by the streams. Perhaps they are so named because their colors scream. They do not look like monkeys. Nor do the louseworts look like little bugs. Far from resembling a bug, one lousewort growing by the Wonderland Trail resembles an African elephant, trunk outstretched for peanuts, ears flapping in the wind, a perfect miniature. The flowers on another lousewort curl over into a mimic duck's bill.

Then there is the red pentstemon, in stony places, like the serpent, on a rock. Its deep cup is open like a reptile's mouth, and in it are white, fang-like stamens. If it grew on plantain leaves, what a fine vegetable serpent we would have.

There are pets on the wonderland trail:-the cat's paw everlasting and the dog-tooth violet. There are deer-tongues in the woods and adder's-tongues, too. But nowhere along the Wonderland Trail will you find the reverse, an animal named for a plant, not even a potato bug.

By S. B. Jones--Ranger Naturalist.

AURORA SEEN

The Northern Lights were seen at Paradise Park the evening of July 21st. The display, while by no means as brilliant as those seen in the East, was sufficiently remarkable to note in western Washington, where auroral displays are rare and feeble. The streamers of light appeared, from Paradise Park, to emerge from behind the mountain, ascending to the zenith. At the time of greatest brilliancy, about ten P. M., the Northern Lights cast a visible glow upon the snows of the peak.

By S. B. Jones--Ranger Naturalist.