g brook. It is a common plant, found almost anywhere
in streams and brooks. Its smooth green or brownish leaves lie on the
top of the water; they are compound, with from three to nine small
rounded leaflets. The flavor is peppery and pungent. Watercress
sandwiches are good. The white flowers are small and insignificant and
grow in a small cluster at the end of the stem.

=Dandelion=

A salad of tender, young _dandelion_ leaves is not to be despised, and
the plant grows everywhere. Only the very young leaves, that come up
almost white in the spring, are good. The flavor is slightly bitter with
the wholesome bitterness one likes in the spring of the year. These
young leaves are also good when cooked like spinach. The plant is so
common it does not really call for a description, and if you know it you
can skip the following:

Growing low on the ground, sometimes with leaves lying flat on the
surface, the dandelion sends up a hollow, leafless stem crowned with a
bright-yellow, many-petalled flower about the size of a silver
fifty-cent piece. The seed head is a round ball of white down. The
leaves are deeply notched, much like thistle leaves, but they have no
prickles.

CHAPTER VIII

LITTLE FOES OF THE TRAILER

=Poisonous Insects, Reptiles, and Plants=

=Insects=

My first experience with wood-ticks, jiggers, and Jersey mosquitoes was
during the summer we spent at Bayville, near Toms River, N. J. In many
ways Bayville, with its sand, its pines, its beautiful wood roads, and
rare wild flowers, is an interesting and attractive place. The salty air
is fine when the thermometer is self-respecting and keeps the mercury
below 90 deg. in the shade, but the oak underbrush harbors wood-ticks, the
blackberry bushes cover you with jiggers, the woods are full of
deer-flies, and the vicious mosquito, whose name is Legion, is
everywhere where he is not barred out.

=Wood-Ticks=

I had been told of the ticks that infest the forests of the South, had
heard blood-curdling stories of how they sometimes bury themselves,
entire, in the flesh of animals and men and have to be cut out, and my
horror of them was great. In reality I found them unpleasant enough but,
as far as we were concerned, comparatively harmless.

The wood-tick is a small, rather disgusting-looking creature which, in
appearance and size, resembles the common bedbug. It fastens itself upon
you without your knowledge and you do not feel it even when