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diff --git a/old/69355-0.txt b/old/69355-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 13a243a..0000000 --- a/old/69355-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5095 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Footing it in Franconia, by Bradford -Torrey - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Footing it in Franconia - -Author: Bradford Torrey - -Release Date: November 14, 2022 [eBook #69355] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Emmanuel Ackerman, David E. Brown, and the Online - Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This - file was produced from images generously made available by - The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA *** - - - - - -Books by Mr. Torrey. - - - =EVERYDAY BIRDS.= Elementary Studies. With twelve colored - Illustrations reproduced from Audubon. Square 12mo, $1.00. - - =BIRDS IN THE BUSH.= 16mo, $1.25. - - =A RAMBLER’S LEASE.= 16mo, $1.25. - - =THE FOOT-PATH WAY.= 16mo, gilt top, $1.25. - - =A FLORIDA SKETCH-BOOK.= 16mo, $1.25. - - =SPRING NOTES FROM TENNESSEE.= 16mo, $1.25. - - =A WORLD OF GREEN HILLS.= 16mo, $1.25. - - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. - BOSTON AND NEW YORK. - - - - - FOOTING IT IN - FRANCONIA - - BY - BRADFORD TORREY - - “And now each man bestride his hobby, and - dust away his bells to what tune he pleases.” - - CHARLES LAMB. - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY - The Riverside Press, Cambridge - 1901 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY BRADFORD TORREY - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - _Published October, 1901_ - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - AUTUMN 1 - - SPRING 79 - - A DAY IN JUNE 120 - - BERRY-TIME FELICITIES 147 - - RED LEAF DAYS 177 - - AMERICAN SKYLARKS 195 - - A QUIET MORNING 208 - - IN THE LANDAFF VALLEY 217 - - A VISIT TO MOUNT AGASSIZ 228 - - - - -FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA - - - - -AUTUMN - - “There did they dwell, - As happy spirits as were ever seen; - If but a bird, to keep them company, - Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween, - As pleased as if the same had been a Maiden-queen.” - - WORDSWORTH. - - -Five or six hours of pleasant railway travel, up the course of one -river valley after another,--the Merrimac, the Pemigewasset, the -Baker, the Connecticut, and finally the Ammonoosuc,--not to forget the -best hour of all, on the shores of Lake Winnipisaukee, the spacious -blue water now lying full in the sun, now half concealed by a fringe -of woods, with mountains and hills, Chocorua, Paugus, and the rest, -shifting their places beyond it, appearing and disappearing as the -train follows the winding track,--five or six hours of this delightful -panoramic journey, and we leave the cars at Littleton. Then a few miles -in a carriage up a long, steep hill through a glorious autumn-scented -forest, the horses pausing for breath as one water-bar after another -is surmounted, and we are at the height of land, where two or three -highland farmers have cleared some rocky acres, built houses and -painted them, and planted gardens and orchards. As we reach this -happy clearing all the mountains stand facing us on the horizon, and -below, between us and Lafayette, lies the valley of Franconia, toward -which, again through stretches of forest, we rapidly descend. At the -bottom of the way Gale River comes dancing to meet us, babbling among -its boulders,--more boulders than water at this end of the summer -heats,--in its cheerful uphill progress. Its uphill progress, I say, -and repeat it; and if any reader disputes the word, then he has never -been there and seen the water for himself, or else he is an unfortunate -who has lost his child’s heart (without which there is no kingdom of -heaven for a man), and no longer lives by faith in his own senses. -On the spot I have called the attention of many to it, and they have -every one agreed with me. Mountain rivers have attributes of their own; -or, possibly, the mountains themselves lay some spell upon the running -water or upon the beholder’s eyesight. Be that as it may, Lafayette -all the while draws nearer and nearer, we going one way and Gale -River the other, until, after leaving the village houses behind us, -we alight almost at its base. Solemn and magnificent, it is yet most -companionable, standing thus in front of one’s door, the first thing to -be looked at in the morning, and the last at night. - -The last thing to be _thought_ of at night is the weather,--the weather -and what goes with it and depends upon it, the question of the next -day’s programme. In a hill country meteorological prognostications are -proverbially difficult; but we have learned to “hit it right” once in -a while; and, right or wrong, we never omit our evening forecast. “It -looks like a fair day to-morrow,” says one. “Well,” answers the other, -with no thought of discourtesy in the use of the subjunctive particle, -“if it is, what say you to walking to Bethlehem by the way of Wallace -Hill, and taking in Mount Agassiz on our return after dinner?” Or the -prophet speaks more doubtfully, and the other says, “Oh well, if it is -cloudy and threatening, we will go the Landaff Valley round, and see -what birds are in the larch swamp. If it seems to have set in for a -steady rain, we can try the Butter Hill road.” - -And so it goes. In Franconia it must be a very bad half day indeed when -we fail to stretch our legs with a five or six mile jaunt. I speak of -those of us who foot it. The more ease-loving, or less uneasy members -of the party, who keep their carriage, are naturally less independent -of outside conditions. When it rains they amuse themselves indoors; a -pitch of sensibleness which the rest of us may sometimes regard with -a shade of envy, perhaps, though we have never admitted as much to -each other, much less to any one else. To plod through the mud is more -exhilarating than to sit before a fire; and we leave the question of -reasonableness and animal comfort on one side. Time is short, and we -decline to waste it on theoretical considerations. - -Our company, as I say, is divided: carriage people and pedestrians, we -may call them; or, if you like, drivers and footmen. The walkers are -now no more than the others. Formerly--till this present autumn--they -were three. Now, alas, one of them walks no longer on earth. The hills -that knew him so well know him no more. The asters and goldenrods -bloom, but he comes not to gather them. The maples redden, but he comes -not to see them. Yet in a better and truer sense he is with us still; -for we remember him, and continually talk of him. If we pass a sphagnum -bog, we think how at this point he used to turn aside and put a few -mosses into his box. Some professor in Germany, or a scholar in New -Haven, had asked him to collect additional specimens. In those days of -his sphagnum absorption we called him sometimes the “sphagnostic.” - -If we come down a certain steep pitch in the road from Garnet Hill, -we remind each other that here he always stopped to look for _Aster -Lindleyanus_, telling us meanwhile how problematical the identity -of the plant really was. Professor So-and-So had pronounced it -Lindleyanus, but Doctor Somebody-Else believed it to be only an odd -form of a commoner species. In the Wallace Hill woods, I remember how -we spent an afternoon there, he and I, only two years ago, searching -for an orchid which just then had come newly under discussion among -botanists, and how pleased he was when for once my eyes were luckier -than his. If we are on the Landaff road, my companion asks, “Do you -remember the Sunday noon when we went home and told E---- that this -wood was full of his rare willow? And how he posted over here by -himself, directly after dinner, to see it? And how he said, in a tone -of whimsical entreaty, ‘Please don’t find it anywhere else; we mustn’t -let it become too common’?” Oh yes, I remember; and my companion -knows he has no need to remind me of it; but he loves to talk of the -absent,--and he knows I love to hear him. - -That willow I can never see anywhere without thinking of the man who -first told me about it. Whether I pass the single small specimen -between Franconia and the Profile House, so close upon the highway that -the road-menders are continually cutting it back, or the one on the -Bethlehem road, or the great cluster of stems on Wallace Hill, it will -always be _his_ willow. - -And indeed this whole beautiful hill country is his. How happy he -was in it! I used sometimes to talk to him about the glories of our -Southern mountains,--Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia; but he was -never to be enticed away even in thought. “I think I shall never go -out of New England again,” he would answer, with a smile; and he never -did, though in his youth he had traveled more widely than I am ever -likely to do. The very roadsides here must miss him, and wonder why -he no longer passes, with his botanical box slung over his shoulder -and an opera-glass in his hand,--equally ready for a plant or a bird. -He was always looking for something, and always finding it. With his -happiness, his goodness, his gentle dignity, his philosophic temper, -his knowledge of his own mind, his love of all things beautiful, he has -made Franconia a dear place for all of us who knew him here. - -To me, as to all of us, it is dear also for its own sake. This season I -returned to it alone,--with no walking mate, I mean to say. He was to -join me later, but for eight or ten days I was to follow the road by -myself. At night I must make my own forecast of the weather and lay out -my own morrow. - -The first day was one of the good ones, fair and still. As I came out -upon the piazza before breakfast and looked up at Lafayette, a solitary -vireo was phrasing sweetly from the bushes on one side of the house, -and two or three vesper sparrows were remembering the summer from the -open fields on the other side. It was the 22d of September, and by this -time the birds knew how to appreciate a day of brightness and warmth. - -Seeing them in such a mood, I determined to spend the forenoon in their -society. I would take the road to Sinclair’s Mills,--a woodsy jaunt, -yet not too much in the forest, always birdy from one end to the other. - -“This is living!” I found myself repeating aloud, as I went up the -longish hill to the plateau above Gale River, on the Bethlehem road. -“This is living!” No more books, no more manuscripts,--my own or other -people’s,--no more errands to the city. How good the air was! How -glorious the mountains, unclouded, but hazy! How fragrant the ripening -herbage in the shelter of the woods!--an odor caught for an instant, -and then gone again; something that came of itself, not to be detected, -much less traced to its source, by any effort or waiting. The forests -were still green,--I had to look closely to find here and there the -first touch of red or yellow; but the flowering season was mostly -over, a few ragged asters and goldenrods being the chief brighteners -of the wayside. About the sunnier patches of them, about the asters -especially, insects were hovering, still drinking honey before it -should be too late: yellow butterflies, bumble-bees (of some northern -kind, apparently, marked with orange, and not so large as our common -Massachusetts fellow), with swarms of smaller creatures of many sorts. -If I stopped to attend to it, each aster bunch was a world by itself. -And more than once I did stop. There was no haste; I had chosen my -route partly with a view to just such idling; and the birds were, and -were likely to be, nothing but old favorites. And they proved to be -not many, after all. The best of them were the winter wrens, which I -thought I had never seen more numerous; every one fretting, _tut, tut_, -in their characteristic manner, without a note of song. - -On my way back, the sun being higher, there were many butterflies in -the road, flat on the sand, with wings outspread. If ever there is -comfort in the world, the butterfly feels it at such times. Here and -there half a dozen or more of yellow ones would be huddled about a damp -spot. There were mourning-cloaks, also, and many small angle-wings, -some species of _Grapta_, I knew not which, of a peculiarly bright red. -Once or twice, wishing a name for them, I essayed to catch a specimen -under my hat; but it seemed a small business, at which I was only half -ashamed to find myself grown inexpert. - -The forenoon was not without its tragedy, nevertheless. As I came out -into the open, on my return from the river woods toward the Bethlehem -road, a carriage stopped across the field; a man jumped out, gun in -hand, ran up to an unoccupied house standing there by itself, with a -tract of low meadow behind it, peeped cautiously round the corner, -lifted his gun, leveled it upon something with the quickness of a -practiced marksman, and fired. Then down the grassy slope he went on -the run out of sight, and in a minute reappeared, holding a crow by -its claw. He took the trophy into the carriage with him,--two ladies -and a second man occupying the other seats,--and as I emerged from the -pine wood, fifteen minutes afterward, I found it lying in the middle -of the road. Its shining feathers would fly no more; but its death had -brightened the day of some of the lords and ladies of creation. What -happier fate could a crow ask for? - -One of my first desires, this time (there is always something in -particular on my mind when I go to Franconia), was to revisit Lonesome -Lake, a romantic sheet of water lying deep in the wilderness on the -back side of Mount Cannon, at an elevation of perhaps twenty-eight -hundred feet, or something less than a thousand feet above the level -of Profile Notch. One of its two owners, fortunately, is of our -Franconia company; and when I spoke of my intention of visiting it -again, he bade me drive up with his man, who would be going that way -within a day or two. Late as the season was getting, he still went -up to the lake once or twice a week, it appeared, keeping watch over -the cabin, boat-house, and so forth. The plan suited my convenience -perfectly. We drove to the foot of the bridle path, off the Notch road; -the man put a saddle on the horse and rode up, and I followed on foot. - -The climb is longer or shorter, as the climber may elect. A pedestrian -would do it in thirty minutes, or a little less, I suppose; a -nature-loving stroller may profitably be two hours about it. There -must be at least a hundred trees along the path, which a sensitive man -might be glad to stop and commune with: ancient birches, beeches, and -spruces, any one of which, if it could talk, or rather if we had ears -to hear it, would tell us things not to be read in any book. Hundreds -of years many of the spruces must have stood there. Some of them, in -all likelihood, were of a good height long before any white man set -foot on this continent. Many of them were already old before they ever -saw a paleface. What dwarfs and weaklings these restless creatures are, -that once in a while come puffing up the hillside, halting every few -minutes to get their breath and stare foolishly about! What murderer’s -curse is on them, that they have no home, no abiding-place, where they -can stay and get their growth? - -It is a precious and solemn stillness that falls upon a man in these -lofty woods. Across the narrow pass, as he looks through the branches, -are the long, rugged upper slopes of Lafayette, torn with slides and -gashed into deep ravines. Far over his head soar the trees, tall, -branchless trunks pushing upward and upward, seeking the sun. In their -leafy tops the wind murmurs, and here and there a bird is stirring. -Now a chickadee lisps, or a nuthatch calls to his fellow. Out of the -tangled, round-leaved hobble-bushes underneath an occasional robin -may start with a quick note of surprise, or a flock of white-throats -or snowbirds will fly up one by one to gaze at the intruder. In one -place I hear the faint smooth-voiced signals of a group of Swainson -thrushes and the chuck of a hermit. A few siskins (rarer than usual -this year, it seems to me) pass overhead, sounding their curious, -long-drawn whistle, as if they were blowing through a fine-toothed -comb. Further up, I stand still at the tapping of a woodpecker just -before me. Yes, there he is, on a dead spruce. A sapsucker, I call him -at the first glance. But I raise my glass. No, it is not a sapsucker, -but a bird of one of the three-toed species; a male, for I see his -yellow crown-patch. His back is black. And now, of a sudden, a second -one joins him. I am in great luck. This is a bird I have never seen -before except once, and that many years ago on Mount Washington, in -Tuckerman’s Ravine. The pair are gone too soon, and, patiently as I -linger about the spot, I see no more of them. A pity they could not -have broken silence. It is little we know of a bird or of a man till we -hear him speak. - -At the lake there are certain to be numbers of birds; not water -birds, for the most part,--though I steal forward quietly at the last, -hoping to surprise a duck or two, or a few sandpipers, as sometimes -I have done,--but birds of the woods. The water makes a break in the -wilderness,--a natural rendezvous, as we may say; it lets in the sun, -also, and attracts insects; and birds of many kinds seem to enjoy its -neighborhood. I do not wonder. To-day I notice first a large flock of -white-throats, and a smaller flock of cedar-birds. The latter, when -I first discover them, are in the conical tops of the tall spruces, -whence they rise into the air, one after another, with a peculiar -motion, as if a hand had tossed them aloft. They are catching insects, -a business at which no bird can be more graceful, I think, though -some may have been at it longer and more exclusively. Their behavior -is suggestive of play rather than of a serious occupation. Near the -white-throats are snowbirds, and in the firs by the lakeside chickadees -are stirring, among which, to my great satisfaction, I presently -hear a few Hudsonian voices. _Sick-a-day-day_, they call, and soon a -little brown-headed fellow is directly at my elbow. I stretch out -my hand, and chirp encouragingly. He comes within three or four feet -of it, and looks and looks at me, but is not to be coaxed nearer. -_Sick-a-day-day-day_, he calls again (“I don’t like strangers,” he -means to tell me), and away he flits. He is almost always here, and -right glad I am to see him on my annual visit. I have never been -favored with a sight of him further south. - -The lake is like a mirror, and I sit in the boat with the sun on my -back (as comfortable as a butterfly), listening and looking. What else -can I do? I have pulled out far enough to bring the top of Lafayette -into view above the trees, and have put down the oars. The birds are -mostly invisible. Chickadees can be heard talking among themselves, -a flicker calls _wicker, wicker_, whatever that means, and once a -kingfisher springs his rattle. Red squirrels seem to be ubiquitous, -full of sauciness and chatter. How very often their clocks need -winding! A few big dragon-flies are still shooting over the water. But -the best thing of all is the place itself: the solitude, the brooding -sky (the lake’s own, it seems to be), the solemn mountain-top, the -encircling forest, the musical woodsy stillness. The rowan trees were -never so bright with berries. Here and there one still holds full of -green leaves, with the ripe red clusters shining everywhere among them. - -After luncheon I must sit for a while in the forest itself. Every -breath in the treetops, unfelt at my level, brings down a sprinkling -of yellow birch leaves, each with a faint rustle, like a whispered -good-by, as it strikes against the twigs in its fall. Every one -preaches its sermon, and I know the text,--“We all do fade.” May the -rest of us be as happy as the leaves, and fade only when the time is -ripe. A nuthatch, busy with his day’s work, passes near me. Small as he -is, I hear his wing-beats. A squirrel jumps upon the very log on which -I am seated, but is off in a jiffy on catching sight of so unexpected -a neighbor. So short a log is not big enough for two of us, he thinks. -By and by I hear a bird stirring on a branch overhead, and look up to -find him a red-eyed vireo. One of the belated, he must be, according -to my almanac. He peers down at me with inquisitive, sidelong glances. -A man!--in such a place!--and sitting still! I like to believe that -he, as well as I, feels a pleasurable surprise at the unlooked-for -encounter. We call him the preacher, but he is not sermonizing to-day, -perhaps because the falling leaves have taken the words out of his -mouth. - -It is one of the best things about a place like this that it gives a -man a most unusual feeling of remoteness and isolation. To be here -is not the same as to be in some equally wild and silent spot nearer -to human habitations. The sense of the climb we have made, of the -wilderness we have traversed, still folds us about. The fever and the -fret, so constant with us as to be mostly unrealized or taken for the -normal state of man, are for the moment gone, and peace settles upon -the heart. For myself, at least, there is an unspeakable sweetness in -such an hour. I could stay here, forever, I think, till I became a -tree. That feeling I have often had,--a state of ravishment, a kind of -absorption into the life of things about me. It will not last, and I -know it will not; but it is like heaven, for the time it is on me,--a -foretaste, perhaps, of the true Nirvana. - -Yet to-day--so self-contradictory a creature is man--there were some -things I missed. The dreamer was still a hobbyist, and the hobbyist had -been in the Lonesome Lake woods before; and he wondered what had become -of the crossbills. The common red ones were always here, I should have -said, and on more than one visit I had found the rarer and lovelier -white-winged species. Now, in all the forest chorus, not a crossbill’s -note was audible. - -One day, bright like this, I was sitting at luncheon on the sunny stoop -of the cabin, facing the water, when I caught a sudden glimpse of a -white-wing, as I felt sure, about some small decaying gray logs on the -edge of the lake just before me, the remains of a disused landing. The -next moment the bird dropped out of sight between two of them. I sat -motionless, glass in hand, and eyes fixed (so I could almost have made -oath) upon the spot where he had disappeared. I fancied he was at -his bath. Minute after minute elapsed. There was no sign of him, and -at last I left my seat and made my way stealthily down to the shore. -Nothing rose. I tramped over the logs, with no result. It was like -magic,--the work of some evil spirit. I began almost to believe that my -eyes had been made the fools of the other senses. If I had seen a bird -there, where in the name of reason could it have gone? It could not -have dropped into the water, seeking winter quarters in the mud at the -bottom, according to the notions of our old-time ornithologists! - -Half an hour afterward, having finished my luncheon, I went into the -woods along the path; and there, presently, I discovered a mixed flock -of crossbills,--red ones and white-wings,--feeding so quietly that till -now I had not suspected their presence. My waterside bird was doubtless -among them; and doubtless my eyes had not been fixed upon the place of -his disappearance quite so uninterruptedly as I had imagined. It was -not the first time that such a thing had happened to me. How frequently -have we all seen a bird dart into a bit of cover, and never come out! -If we are watchful and clever, we are not the only ones. - -Luck has no little to do with a bird-lover’s success or failure in any -particular walk. If we go and go, patience will have its wages; but if -we can go but once or twice, we must take what Fortune sends, be it -little or much. So it had been with me and the three-toed woodpeckers, -that morning. I had chanced to arrive at that precise point in the -path just at the moment when they chanced to alight upon that dead -spruce,--one tree among a million. What had been there ten minutes -before, and what came ten minutes after, I shall never know. So it -was again on the descent, which I protracted as much as possible, for -love of the woods and for the hope of what I might find in them. I was -perhaps halfway down when I heard thrush calls near by: the whistle of -an olive-back and the chuck of a hermit, both strongly characteristic, -slight as they seem. I halted, of course, and on the instant some large -bird flew past me and perched in full sight, only a few rods away. -There he sat facing me, a barred owl, his black eyes staring straight -into mine. How big and solemn they looked! Never tell me that the -barred owl cannot see by daylight. - -The thrushes had followed him. It was he, and not a human intruder, to -whom they had been addressing themselves. Soon the owl flew a little -further away (it was wonderful how large he looked in the air), the -thrushes still after him; and in a few minutes more he took wing -again. This time several robins joined the hermit and the olive-back, -and all hands disappeared up the mountain side. Probably the pursuers -were largely reinforced as the chase proceeded, and I imagined the big -fellow pretty thoroughly mobbed before he got safely away. Every small -bird has his opinion of an owl. - -What interested me as much as anything connected with the whole affair -was the fact that the olive-back, even in his excitement, made use of -nothing but his mellow staccato whistle, such as he employs against the -most inoffensive of chance human disturbers. Like the chickadee, and -perhaps some other birds, he is musical, and not over-emphatic, even in -his anger. - -Again and again I rested to admire the glory of Mount Lafayette, which -loomed more grandly than ever, I was ready to declare, seen thus -partially and from this point of vantage. Twice, at least, I had been -on its summit in such a fall day,--once on the 1st of October, and -again, the year afterward, on a date two days earlier. That October day -was one of the fairest I ever knew, both in itself (and perfect weather -is a rare thing, try as we may to speak nothing but good of the doings -of Providence) and in the pleasure it brought me. - -For the next year’s ascent, which I remember more in detail, we -chose--a brother Franconian and myself--a morning when the tops of the -mountains, as seen from the valley lands, were white with frost or -snow. We wished to find out for ourselves which it was, and just how -the mountain looked under such wintry conditions. - -The spectacle would have repaid us for a harder climb. A cold northwest -wind (it was still blowing) had swept over the summit and coated -everything it struck, foliage and rocks alike, with a thick frost (half -an inch or more in depth, if my memory is to be trusted), white as -snow, but almost as hard as ice. The effect was strangely beautiful. -A dwarf fir tree, for instance, would be snow white on one side and -bright green on the other. As we looked along the sharp ridge running -to the South Peak, so called (the very ridge at the face of which I was -now gazing from the Lonesome Lake path), one slope was white, the other -green. Summer and winter were divided by an inch. - -We nestled in the shelter of the rocks, on the south side of the -summit, courting the sun and avoiding the wind, and lay there for -two hours, exulting in the prospect, and between times nibbling -our luncheon, which latter we “topped off” with a famous dessert -of berries, gathered on the spot: three sorts of blueberries, and, -for a sour, the mountain cranberry. The blueberries were _Vaccinium -uliginosum_, _V. cæspitosum_, and _V. Pennsylvanicum_ (there is no -doing without the Latin names), their comparative abundance being in -the order given. The first two were really plentiful. All of them, -of course, grew on dwarf bushes, matting the ground between the -boulders. At that exposed height not even a blueberry bush ventures -to stand upright. One of them, _V. cæspitosum_, was both a surprise -and a luxury, the small berries having a most deliciously rich fruity -flavor, like the choicest of bananas! Probably no botanical writer has -ever mentioned the point, and I have great satisfaction in supplying -the deficiency, apprehending no rush of epicures to the place in -consequence. About the fact itself there can be no manner of doubt. -My companion fully agreed with me, and he is not only a botanist of -international repute, but a most capable gastronomer. Much the poorest -berry of the three was the Pennsylvanian, the common low blueberry -of Massachusetts. “Strawberry huckleberry” it used to be called in -my day by Old Colony children, with a double disregard of scientific -proprieties. Even thus late in the season the Greenland sandwort was -in perfectly fresh bloom; but the high cold wind made it a poor “bird -day,” though I remember a white-throated sparrow singing cheerily near -Eagle Lake, and a large hawk or eagle floating high over the summit. -At the sight my fellow traveler broke out,-- - - “My heart leaps up when I behold - An eagle in the sky.” - -On that point, as concerning the fine qualities of the cespitose -blueberry, we were fully agreed. - -Even in Franconia, however, most of our days are spent, not in mountain -paths, but in the valley and lower hill roads. We keep out of the -mountains partly because we love to look at them (“I pitch my walk low, -but my prospects high,” says an old poet), and partly, perhaps, because -the paths to their summits have seemed to fall out of repair, and even -to become steeper, with the lapse of years. One of my good trips, -this autumn, was over the road toward Littleton, and then back in the -direction of Bethlehem as far as the end of the Indian Brook road. -That, as I planned it, would be no more than six or seven miles, at the -most, and there I was to be met by the driving members of the club, who -would bring me home for the mid-day meal,--an altogether comfortable -arrangement. It is good to have time to spare, so that one can dally -along, fearful only of arriving at the end of the way too soon. Such -was now my favored condition, and I made the most of it. If I crossed -a brook, I stayed awhile to listen to it and moralize its song. If a -flock of bluebirds and sparrows were twittering about a farmer’s barn, -I lingered a little to watch their doings. When a white-crowned sparrow -or a partridge showed itself in the road in advance of me, that was -reason enough for another halt. It is a pretty picture: a partridge -caught unexpectedly in the open, its ruff erect, and its tail, fully -spread, snapping nervously with every quick, furtive step. And the fine -old trees in the Littleton hill woods were of themselves sufficient, on -a warm day like this, to detain any one who was neither a worldling nor -a man sent for the doctor. They detained me, at all events; and very -glad I was to sit down more than once for a good season with them. - -And so the hours passed. At the top of the road, in the clearing by -the farms, I met a pale, straight-backed young fellow under a military -hat. “You look like a man from Cuba or from Chickamauga,” I ventured -to say. “Chickamauga,” he answered laconically, and marched on. Whether -it was typhoid fever or simple “malaria” that had whitened his face -there was no chance to inquire. He was munching an apple, which at -that moment was also my own occupation. I had just stopped under a -promising-looking tree, whose generous branches spilled their crop -over the roadside wall,--excellent “common fruit,” as Franconians say, -mellow, but with a lively, ungrafted tang. Here in this sunny stretch -of road were more of my small Grapta butterflies, and presently I came -upon a splendid tortoise-shell (_Vanessa Milberti_). That I would -certainly have captured had I been armed with a net. I had seen two -like it the day before, to the surprise of my friends the carriage -people, ardent entomological collectors, both of them. They had found -not a single specimen the whole season through. “There are some -advantages in beating out the miles on foot,” I said to myself. I have -never seen this strikingly handsome butterfly in Massachusetts, as I -once did its rival in beauty, the banded purple (Arthemis); and even -here in the hill country it is never so common as to lose that precious -bloom which rarity puts upon whatever it touches. - -As I turned down the Bethlehem road, the valley and hill prospects -on the left became increasingly beautiful. Here I passed hermit -thrushes (it was good to see them already so numerous again, after the -destruction that had wasted them a few winters ago), a catbird or two, -and a few ruby-crowned kinglets,--some of them singing,--and before -long found myself within the limits of a rich man’s red farm; fences, -houses, barns, poultry coops, and the rest, all painted of the same -deep color, as if to say, “All this is mine.” I remembered the estate -well, and have never grudged the owner of it his lordly possessions. I -enjoy them, also, in my own way. He keeps his roads in apple-pie order, -without meddling with their natural beauty (I wish our Massachusetts -“highway surveyors” all worked under his orders, or were endowed with -his taste), and is at pains to save his woods from the hands of the -spoiler. “Please do not peel bark from the birch trees,”--so the signs -read; and I say Amen. He has splendid flower gardens, too, and plants -them well out upon the wayside for all men to enjoy. Long may it be -before his soul is required of him. - -By this time I was in the very prettiest of the red-farm woods. Hermit -thrushes were there, also, standing upright in the middle of the road, -and in the forest hylas were peeping, one of them a real champion for -the loudness of his tone. How full of glory the place was, with the -sunlight sifting through the bright leaves and flickering upon the -shining birch trunks! If I were an artist, I think I would paint wood -interiors. - -My forenoon’s walk was ended. Another turn in the road, and I saw the -carriage before me, the driver minding the horses, and the passengers’ -seat vacant. The entomologists had gone into the woods looking for -specimens, and there I joined them. They were in search of beetles, -they said, and had no objection to my assistance; I had better look -for decaying toadstools. This was easy work, I thought; but, as is -always the way with my efforts at insect collecting, I could find -nothing to the purpose. The best I could do was to bring mushrooms -full of maggots (larvæ, the carrier of the cyanide and alcohol bottles -called them), and what was desired was the beetles which the larvæ -turned into. Once I announced a small spider, but the bottle-holder -said, No, it was not a spider, but a mite; and there was no disputing -an expert, who had published a list of Franconia spiders,--one hundred -and forty-nine species! (She had wished very much for one more name, -she told me, but her friend and assistant had remarked that the odd -number would look more honest!) However, it is a poor sort of man who -cannot enjoy the sight of another’s learning, and the exposure of his -own ignorance. It was worth something to see a first-rate, thoroughly -equipped “insectarian” at work and to hear her talk. I should have -been proud even to hold one of her smaller phials, but they were all -adjusted beyond the need, or even the comfortable possibility, of such -assistance. There was nothing for it but to play the looker-on and -listener. In that part I hope I was less of a failure. - -The enthusiastic pursuit of special knowledge, persisted in year after -year, is a phenomenon as well worth study as the song and nesting -habits of a thrush or a sparrow; and I gladly put myself to school, not -only this forenoon, but as often as I found the opportunity. One day -my mentor told me that she hoped she had discovered a new flea! She -kept, as I knew, a couple of pet deer-mice, and it seemed that some -almost microscopic fleas had left them for a bunch of cotton wherein -the mice were accustomed to roll themselves up in the daytime. These -minute creatures the entomologist had pounced upon, clapped into a -bottle, and sent off straightway to the American flea specialist, who -lived somewhere in Alabama. In a few days she should hear from him, and -perhaps, if the species were undescribed, there would be a flea named -in her honor.[1] - -Distinctions of that nature are almost every-day matters with her. How -many species already bear her name she has never told me. I suspect -they are so numerous and so frequent that she herself can hardly -keep track of them. Think of the pleasure of walking about the earth -and being able to say, as an insect chirps, “Listen! that is one of -my species,--named after me, you know.” Such _specific_ honors, I -say, are common in her case,--common almost to satiety. But to have -a _genus_ named for her,--that was glory of a different rank, glory -that can never fall to the same person but once; for generic names -are unique. Once given, they are patented, as it were. They can never -be used again--for genera, that is--in any branch of natural science. -To our Franconia entomologist this honor came, by what seemed a -poetic justice, in the Lepidoptera, the order in which she began her -researches. Hers is a genus of moths. I trust they are not of the kind -that “corrupt.” - -Thinking how above measure I should be exalted in such circumstances, -I am surprised that she wears her laurels so meekly. Not that she -affects to conceal her gratification; she is as happy over her genus, -perhaps, as over the new _édition de luxe_ of her most famous story; -for an entomologist may be also a novelist, if she has a _mind_ to be, -as Charles Lamb would have said; but she knows how to carry it off -lightly. She and the botanist of the party, my “walking mate,” who, -I am proud to say, is similarly distinguished, often laugh together -about their generic namesakes (his is of the large and noble Compositæ -family); and then, sometimes, the lady will turn to me. - -“It is too bad _you_ can never have a genus,” she will say in her -bantering tone; “the name is already taken up, you know.” - -“Yes, indeed, I know it,” I answer her. An older member of the family, -a --th cousin, carried off the prize many years ago, and the rest of us -are left to get on as best we can, without the hope of such dignities. -When I was in Florida I took pains to see the tree,--the family -evergreen, we may call it. Though it is said to have an ill smell, it -is handsome, and we count it an honor. - -“But then, perhaps you would never have had a genus named for you, -anyhow,” the entomologist continues, still bent upon mischief. - -And there we leave the matter. Let the shoemaker stick to his last. -Some of us were not born to shine at badinage, or as collectors of -beetles. For myself, in this bright September weather I have no -ambitions. It is enough, I think, to be a follower of the road, -breathing the breath of life and seeing the beauty of the world. - - * * * * * - -In the afternoon I took the Landaff Valley round, down the village -street nearly to the junction of Gale River and Ham Branch, then up -the Ham Branch (or Landaff) Valley to a crossroad on the left, and so -back to the road from the Profile Notch, and by that home again. The -jaunt, which is one of our Franconia favorites, is peculiar for being -substantially level; with no more uphill and downhill than would be -included in a walk of the same distance--perhaps six miles--almost -anywhere in southern New England. - -The first thing a man is likely to notice as he passes the last of -the village houses, and finds himself skirting the bank of Ham Branch -(which looks to be nearly or quite as full as the river into which it -empties itself), is the color of the water. Gale River is fresh from -the hills, and ripples over its stony bed as clear as crystal. The -branch, on the contrary, has been flowing for some time through a flat -meadowy valley, where it has taken on a rich earthy hue, to which it -might be natural to apply a less honorable sounding word, perhaps, -if it were a question of some neutral stream, in whose character and -reputation I felt no personal, friendly interest. - -Just as I came to it, that afternoon, I saw to my surprise a white -admiral butterfly sunning itself upon an alder leaf. I hope the reader -knows the species,--_Limenitis Arthemis_, sometimes called the banded -purple,--one of the prettiest and showiest of New England insects, four -black or blackish wings crossed by a broad white band. It was much out -of season now, I felt sure, both from what my entomological friends -had told me, and from my own recollections of previous years, and I -was seized with a foolish desire to capture it as a sort of trophy. It -lay just beyond my reach, and I disturbed it, in hopes it would settle -nearer the ground. Twice it disappointed me. Then I threw a stick -toward it, aiming not wisely but too well, and this time startled it -so badly that it rose straight into the air, sailed across the stream, -and came to rest far up in a tall elm. “You were never cut out for a -collector of insects,” I said to myself, recalling my experience of the -forenoon; but I was glad to have seen the creature,--the first one for -several years,--and went on my way as happy as a child in thinking of -it. In the second half of a man’s century he may be thankful for almost -anything that, for the time being, lifts twoscore of years off his -back. The best part of most of us, I think, is the boy that was born -with us. So far I am a Wordsworthian;-- - - “And I could wish _my_ days to be - Bound each to each by natural piety.” - -A little way up the valley we come to an ancient mill and a bridge; a -new bridge it is now, but I remember an old one, and a fright that -I once had upon it. With a fellow itinerant--a learned man, whose -life was valuable--I stopped here to rest of a summer noon, and my -companion, with an eye to shady comfort, clambered over the edge of the -bridge and out upon a joist which projected over the stream. There he -sat down with his back against a pillar and his legs stretched before -him on the joist. He has a theory, concerning which I have heard him -discourse more than once,--something in his own attitude suggesting -the theme,--that when a man, after walking, “puts his feet up,” he is -acting not merely upon a natural impulse, but in accordance with a -sound physiological principle; and in accordance with that principle he -was acting now, as well as the circumstances of the case would permit. -We chatted awhile; then he fell silent; and after a time I turned my -head, and saw him clean gone in a doze. The seat was barely wide enough -to hold him. What if he should move in his sleep, or start up suddenly -on being awakened? I looked at the rocks below, and shivered. I dared -not disturb him, and could only sit in a kind of stupid terror and wait -for him to open his eyes. Happily his nap did not last long, and came -to a quiet termination; so that the cause of science suffered no loss -that day; but I can never go by the place without thinking of what -might have happened. - -Here, likewise, on an autumnal forenoon, two or three years ago, I had -another memorable experience; nothing less (nothing more, the reader -may say) than the song of a hermit thrush. It was in the season after -bluebirds and hermits had been killed in such dreadful numbers (almost -exterminated, we thought then) by cold and snow at the South. I had -scarcely seen a hermit all the year, and was approaching the bridge, -of a pleasant late September morning, when I heard a thrush’s voice. -I stopped instantly. The note was repeated; and there the bird stood -in a low roadside tree; the next minute he began singing in a kind of -reminiscential half-voice,--the soul of a year’s music distilled in a -few drops of sound,--such as birds of many kinds so frequently drop -into in the fall. That, too, I am sure to remember as often as I pass -this way. - -In truth, all my Franconia rambles (I am tempted to write the name in -three syllables, as I sometimes speak it, following the example of -Fishin’ Jimmy and other local worthies),--all my “Francony” rambles, -I say, are by this time full of these miserly delights. It is really -a gain, perhaps, that I make the round of them but once a year. Some -things are wisely kept choice. - - “Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare.” - -To get all the goodness out of a piece of country, return to it again -and again, till every corner of it is alive with memories; but do -not see it too often, nor make your stay in it too long. The hermit -thrush’s voice is all the sweeter because he _is_ a hermit. - -This afternoon I do not cross the bridge, but keep to the valley road, -which soon runs for some distance along the edge of a hackmatack swamp; -full of graceful, pencil-tipped, feathery trees, with here and there -a dead one, on purpose for woodpeckers and hawks. A hairy woodpecker -is on one of them at this moment, now hammering the trunk with his -powerful beak (hammer and chisel in one), now lifting up his voice in -a way to be heard for half a mile. To judge from his ordinary tone -and manner, _Dryobates villosus_ has no need to cultivate decision of -character. Every word is peremptory, and every action speaks of energy -and a mind made up. - -In this larch swamp, though I have never really explored it, I have -seen, first and last, a good many things. Here grows much of the -pear-leaved willow (_Salix balsamifera_). I notice a few bushes even -now as I pass, the reddish twigs each with a tuft of yellowing, -red-stemmed leaves at the tip. Here, one June, a Tennessee warbler sang -to me; and there are only two other places in the world in which I have -been thus favored. Here,--a little farther up the valley,--on a rainy -September forenoon, I once sat for an hour in the midst of as pretty -a flock of birds as a man could wish to see: south-going travelers of -many sorts, whom the fortunes of the road had thrown together. Here -they were, lying by for a day’s rest in this favorable spot; flitting -to and fro, chirping, singing, feeding, playfully quarreling, as if -life, even in rainy weather and in migration time, were all a pleasure -trip. It was a sight to cure low spirits. I sat on the hay just within -the open side of a barn which stands here in the woods, quite by -itself, and watched them till I almost felt myself of their company. -I have forgotten their names, though I listed them carefully enough, -beyond a doubt; but it will be long before I forget my delight in the -birds themselves. Ours may be an evil world, as the pessimists and the -preachers find so much comfort in maintaining, but there is one thing -to be said in its favor: its happy days are the longest remembered. -The pain I suffered years ago I cannot any longer make real to myself, -even if I would, but the joys of that time are still almost as good as -new, when occasion calls them up. Some of them, indeed, seem to have -sweetened with age. This is especially the case, I think, with simple -and natural pleasures; which may be considered as a good reason why -every man should be, if he can, a lover of nature,--a sympathizer, -that is to say, with the life of the world about him. The less -artificial our joys, the more likelihood of their staying by us. - -Not to blink at the truth, nevertheless, I must add a circumstance -which, till this moment, I had clean forgotten. I was still watching -the birds, with perhaps a dozen species in sight close at hand, when -suddenly I observed a something come over them, and on the instant a -large hawk skimmed the tops of the trees. In one second every bird -was gone,--vanished, as if at the touch of a necromancer’s wand. I -did not see them fly; there was no rush of wings; but the place was -empty; and though I waited for them, they did not reappear. Two or -three, indeed, I may have seen afterward, but the flock was gone. _My_ -holiday, at all events, or that part of it, was done,--shadowed by a -hawk’s wing. Undoubtedly a few minutes of safety put the birds all in -comfortable spirits again, however; and anyhow, it bears out my theory -of remembered happiness, that this less cheerful part of the story had -so completely passed out of mind. Memory, like a sundial, had marked -only the bright hour. - -Beyond this lonely barn the soil of the valley becomes drier and -sandier. Here are two or three houses, with broad hayfields about them, -in which live many vesper sparrows. No doubt they have lived here -longer than any of their present human neighbors. Even now they flit -along the wayside in advance of the foot-passenger, running a space, -after their manner, and anon taking wing to alight upon a fence rail. -Their year is done, but they linger still a few days, out of love for -the ancestral fields, or, it may be, in dread of the long journey, from -which some of them will pretty certainly never come back. - -All the way up the road, though no mention has been made of it, -my eyes have been upon the low, bright-colored hills beyond the -river,--sugar-maple orchards all in yellow and red, a gorgeous -display,--or upon the mountains in front, Kinsman and the more distant -Moosilauke. The green meadow is a good place in which to look for -marsh hawks,--as well as of great use as a foreground,--and the hill -woods beyond are the resort of pileated woodpeckers. I have often seen -and heard them here, but there is no sign of them to-day. - -Though these fine birds are generally described--one book following -another, after the usual fashion--as frequenters of the wilderness, -and though it is true that they have forsaken the more thickly settled -parts of the country, I think I have never once seen them in the depths -of the forest. To the best of my recollection none of our Franconia men -have ever reported them from Mount Lafayette or from the Lonesome Lake -region. On the other hand, we meet them with greater or less regularity -in the more open valley woods, often directly upon the roadside; not -only in the Landaff Valley, but on the outskirts of the village toward -Littleton and on the Bethlehem road. In this latter place I remember -seeing a fellow prancing about the trunk of a small orchard tree within -twenty rods of a house; and not so very infrequently, especially in -the rum-cherry season, they make their appearance in the immediate -vicinity of the hotel; for they, like some of their relatives, notably -the sapsucker, are true cherry-birds. In Vermont, too, I have found -their freshly cut “peck-holes” on the very skirts of the village. And -at the South, so far as I have been able to observe, the story is the -same. About Natural Bridge, Virginia, for example, a loosely settled -country, with plenty of woodland but no extensive forests, the birds -were constantly in evidence. In short, untamable as they look, and -little as they may like a town, they seem to find themselves best off, -as birds in general do, on the borders of civilization. They have -something of Thoreau’s mind, we may say: lovers of the wild, they are -yet not quite at home in the wilderness, and prefer the woodman’s path -to the logger’s. - -Not far ahead, on the other side of the way,--to return to the Landaff -Valley,--is a _red_ maple grove, more brilliant even than the sugar -orchards. It ripens its leaves earlier than they, as we have always -noticed, and is already past the acme of its annual splendor; so that -some of the trees have a peculiarly delicate and lovely purplish -tint, a real bloom, never seen, I think, except on the red maple, and -there only after the leaves have begun to curl and fade. Opposite it -(after whistling in vain for a dog with whom in years past, I have -been accustomed to be friendly at one of the houses--he must be dead, -or gone, or grown reserved with age), I take the crossroad before -mentioned; and now, face to face with Lafayette, I stop under a -favorite pine tree to enjoy the prospect and the stillness: no sound -but the chirping of crickets, the peeping of hylas, and the hardly less -musical hammering of a distant carpenter. - -Along the wayside are many gray birches (of the kind called white -birches in Massachusetts, the kind from which Yankee schoolboys snatch -a fearful joy by “swinging off” their tops), the only ones I remember -about Franconia; for which reason I sometimes call the road Gray Birch -Road; and just beyond them I stop again. Here is a bit for a painter: a -lovely vista, such as makes a man wish for a brush and the skill to use -it. The road dips into a little hollow, turns gently, and passes out -of sight within the shadow of a wood. And above the over-arching trees -rises the pyramidal mass of Mount Cannon, its middle part set with -dark evergreens, which are flanked on either side with broad patches -of light yellow,--poplars or birches. The sun is getting down, and its -level rays flood the whole mountain forest with light. - -Into the shadow I go, following the road, and after a turn or two come -out at a small clearing and a house. “Rocky Farm,” we might name it; -for the land is sprinkled over with huge boulders, as if giants had -been at play here. Whoever settled the place first must have chosen -the site for its outlook rather than for any hope of its fertility. I -sit down on one of the stones and take my fill of the mountain glory: -Garfield, Lafayette, Cannon, Kinsman, Moosilauke,--a grand horizonful. -Cannon is almost within reach of the hand, as it looks; but the arm -might need to be two miles long. - -Just here the road makes a sudden bend, passes again into light woods, -and presently emerges upon a little knoll overlooking the upper -Franconia meadows. This is the noblest prospect of the afternoon, and -late as the hour is growing I must lean against the fence rail--for -there is a house at this point also--and gaze upon it. The green meadow -is spread at my feet, flaming maple woods range themselves beyond -it, and behind them, close at hand, loom the sombre mountains. I had -forgotten that this part of the road was so “viewly,” to borrow a local -word, and am thankful to have reached it at so favorable a moment. Now -the shadow of the low hills at my back overspreads the valley, while -the upper world beyond is aglow with light and color. - -It is five o’clock, and I must be getting homeward. Down at the valley -level the evening chill strikes me, after the exceptional warmth of -the day, and by the time Tucker Brook is crossed the bare summit of -Lafayette is of a deep rosy purple,--the rest of the world sunless. -The day is over, and the remaining miles are taken somewhat hurriedly, -although I stop below the Profile House farm to look for a fresh bunch -of dumb foxglove,--not easy to find in the open at this late date, -many as the plants are,--and at one or two other places to pluck a -tempting maple twig. Sated with the magnificence of autumnal forests, -hill after hill splashed with color, the eye loves to withdraw itself -now and then to rest upon the perfection of a blossom or a leaf. -Wagonloads of tourists come down the Notch road, the usual nightly -procession, some silent, some boisterously singing. Among the most -distressing of all the noises that human beings make is this vulgar -shouting of “sacred music” along the public highway. This time the hymn -is Jerusalem the Golden, after the upper notes of which an unhappy -female voice is vainly reaching, like a boy who has lost his wind in -shinning up a tree, and with his last gasping effort still finds the -lowest branch just beyond the clutch of his fingers. - - “I know not, oh, I know not,” - -I hear her shriek, and then a lucky turn in the road takes her out of -hearing, and I listen again to the still small voice of the brook, -which, whether it “knows” or not, has the grace to make no fuss about -it. - -Let that one human discord be forgotten. It had been a glorious day; -few lovelier were ever made: a day without a cloud (literally), and -almost without a breath; a day to walk, and a day to sit still; a -long feast of beauty; and withal, it had for me a perfect conclusion, -as if Nature herself were setting a benediction upon the hours. As I -neared the end of my jaunt, the hotel already in sight, Venus in all -her splendor hung low in the west, the full moon was showing its rim -above the trees in the east, and at the same moment a vesper sparrow -somewhere in the darkening fields broke out with its evening song. Five -or six times it sang, and then fell silent. It was enough. The beauty -of the day was complete. - -The next day, October 1, was no less delightful: mild, still, and -cloudless; so that it was pleasant to lounge upon the piazza in the -early morning, looking at Lafayette,--good business of itself,--and -listening to the warble of a bluebird, the soft chirps of myrtle -warblers, or the distant gobbling of a turkey down at one of the river -farms; while now and then a farmer drove past from his morning errand -at the creamery, with one or two tall milk-cans standing behind him in -the open, one-seated carriage. If you see a man on foot as far from the -village as this, you may set him down, in ornithological language, as -a summer resident or a transient visitor. Franconians, to the manner -born, are otherwise minded, and will “hitch up” for a quarter of a -mile. As good John Bunyan said, “This is a valley that nobody walks in, -but those that love a pilgrim’s life.” - -As I take the Notch road after breakfast the temperature is -summer-like, and the foliage, I think, must have reached its brightest. -Above the Profile House farm, on the edge of the golf links, where the -whole Franconia Valley lies exposed, I seat myself on the wall, inside -a natural hedge that borders the highway, to admire the scene: a long -verdant meadow, flanked by low hills covered, mile after mile, with -vivid reds and yellows; splendor beyond words; a pageant glorious to -behold, but happily of brief duration. Human senses would weary of it, -though the eye loves color as the palate loves spices and sweets, or, -by force of looking at it, would lose all delicacy of perception and -taste. - -Even yet the world, viewed in broad spaces, wears a clean, fresh -aspect; but near at hand the herbage and shrubbery are all in the -sere and yellow leaf. So I am saying to myself when I start at the -sound of a Hudsonian chickadee’s nasal voice speaking straight into -my ear. The saucy chit has dropped into the low poplar sapling over -my head, and surprised at what he discovers underneath, lets fall a -hasty _Sick-a-day-day_. His dress, like his voice, compares unfavorably -with that of his cousin, our familiar black-cap. In fact, I might -say of him, with his dirty brown headdress, what I was thinking of -the roadside vegetation: he looks dingy, out of condition, frayed, -discolored, belated, frost-bitten. But I am delighted to see him,--for -the first time at any such level as this,--and thank my stars that I -sat down to rest and cool off on this hard but convenient boulder. - -A chipmunk thinks I have sat here long enough, and feels no bashfulness -about telling me so. Why should he? Frankness is esteemed a point -of good manners in all natural society. A man shoots down the hill -behind me on a bicycle, coasting like the wind, and another, driving -up, salutes him by name, and then turns to cry after him in a ringing -voice, “How _be_ ye?” The emphatic verb bespeaks a real solicitude on -the questioner’s part; but he is half a mile too late; he might as well -have shouted to the man in the moon. Presently two men in a buggy come -up the road, talking in breezy up-country fashion about some one whose -name they use freely,--a name well known hereabout,--and with whom they -appear to have business relations. “He got up this morning like a ---- ----- thousand of brick,” one of them says. A disagreeable person to -work for, I should suppose. And all the while a child behind the hedge -is taking notes. Queer things we could print, if it were allowable to -report verbatim. - -When this free-spoken pair is far enough in the lead, I go back to the -road again, traveling slowly and keeping to the shady side, with my -coat on my arm. As the climb grows steeper the weather grows more and -more like August; and hark! a cicada is shrilling in one of the forest -trees,--a long-drawn, heat-laden, midsummer cry. I will tell the -entomologist about it, I promise myself. The circumstance must be very -unusual, and cannot fail to interest her. (But she takes it as a matter -of course. It is hard to bring news to a specialist.) - -So I go on, up Hardscrabble and Little Hardscrabble, stopping like a -short-winded horse at every water-bar, and thankful for every bird-note -that calls me to a halt between times. An ornithological preoccupation -is a capital resource when the road is getting the better of you. -The brook likewise must be minded, and some of the more memorable of -the wayside trees. A mountain road has one decided and inalienable -advantage, I remark inwardly: the most perversely opinionated highway -surveyor in the world cannot straighten it. How fast the leaves are -falling, though the air scarcely stirs among them! In some places I -walk through a real shower of gold. Theirs is an easy death. And how -many times I have been up and down this road! Summer and autumn I have -traveled it. And in what pleasant company! Now I am alone; but then, -the solitude itself is an excellent companionship. We are having a -pretty good time of it, I think,--the trees, the brook, the winding -road, the yellow birch leaves, and the human pilgrim, who feels himself -one with them all. I hope they would not disown a poor relation. - -It is ten o’clock. Slowly as I have come, not a wagonload of tourists -has caught up with me; and at the Bald Mountain path I leave the -highway, having a sudden notion to go to Echo Lake by the way of -Artist’s Bluff, so called, a rocky cliff that rises abruptly from -the lower end of the lake. The trail conducts me through a veritable -fernery, one long slope being thickly set with perfectly fresh -shield-ferns,--_Aspidium spinulosum_ and perhaps _A. dilatatum_, though -I do not concern myself to be sure of it. From the bluff the lake is at -my feet, but what mostly fills my eye is the woods on the lower side -of Mount Cannon. There is no language to express the kind of pleasure -I take in them: so soft, so bright, so various in their hues,--dark -green, light green, russet, yellow, red,--all drowned in sunshine, yet -veiled perceptibly with haze even at this slight distance. If there is -anything in nature more exquisitely, ravishingly beautiful than an old -mountainside forest looked at from above, I do not know where to find -it. - -Down at the lakeside there is beauty of another kind: the level blue -water, the clean gray shallows about its margin, the reflections of -bright mountains--Eagle Cliff and Mount Cannon--in its face, and -soaring into the sky, on either side and in front, the mountains -themselves. And how softly the ground is matted under the shrubbery and -trees: twin-flower, partridge berry, creeping snowberry, goldthread, -oxalis, dwarf cornel, checkerberry, trailing arbutus! The very names -ought to be a means of grace to the pen that writes them. - -White-throats and a single winter wren scold at me behind my back as -I sit on a spruce log, but for some reason there are few birds here -to-day. The fact is exceptional. As a rule, I have found the bushes -populous, and once, I remember, not many days later than this, there -were fox sparrows with the rest. I am hoping some time to find a stray -phalarope swimming in the lake. That would be a sight worth seeing. The -lake itself is always here, at any rate, especially now that the summer -people are gone; and if the wind is right and the sun out, so that a -man can sit still with comfort (to-day my coat is superfluous), the -absence of other things does not greatly matter. - -This clean waterside must have many four-footed visitors, particularly -in the twilight and after dark. Deer and bears are common inhabitants -of the mountain woods; but for my eyes there is nothing but squirrels, -with once in a long while a piece of wilder game. Twice only, in -Franconia, have I come within sight of a fox. Once I was alone, in the -wood-road to Sinclair’s Mills. I rounded a curve, and there the fellow -stood in the middle of the way, smelling at something in the rut. After -a bit (my glass had covered him instantly) he raised his head and -looked down the road in a direction opposite to mine. Then he turned, -saw me, started slightly, stood quite still for a fraction of a minute -(I wondered why), and vanished in the woods, his white brush waving me -farewell. He was gone so instantaneously that it was hard to believe he -had really been there. - -That was a pretty good look (at a fox), but far less satisfying than -the other of my Franconia experiences. With two friends I had come down -through the forest from the Notch railroad by a rather blind loggers’ -trail, heading for a pair of abandoned farms, grassy fields in which -it is needful to give heed to one’s steps for fear of bear-traps. As -we emerged into the first clearing a fox was not more than five or -six rods before us, feeding in the grass. Her eyes were on her work, -the wind was in our favor, and notwithstanding two of us were almost -wholly exposed, we stood there on the edge of the forest for the better -part of half an hour, glasses up, passing comments upon her behavior. -Evidently she was lunching upon insects,--grasshoppers or crickets, -I suppose,--and so taken up was she with this agreeable employment -that she walked directly toward us and passed within ten yards of our -position, stopping every few steps for a fresh capture. The sunlight, -which shone squarely in her face, seemed to affect her unpleasantly; -at all events she blinked a good deal. Her manner of stepping about, -her motions in catching her prey,--driving her nose deep into the -grass and pushing it home,--and in short her whole behavior, were more -catlike than doglike, or so we all thought. Plainly she had no idea -of abbreviating her repast, nor did she betray the slightest grain of -suspiciousness or wariness, never once casting an eye about in search -of possible enemies. A dog in his own dooryard could not have seemed -less apprehensive of danger. As often as she approached the surrounding -wood she turned and hunted back across the field. We might have played -the spy upon her indefinitely; but it was always the same thing over -again, and by and by, when she passed for a little out of sight behind -a tuft of bushes, we followed, careless of the result, and, as it -seemed, got into her wind. She started on the instant, ran gracefully -up a little incline, still in the grass land, turned for the first time -to look at us, and disappeared in the forest. A pretty creature she -surely was, and from all we saw of her she might have been accounted -a very useful farm-hand; but perhaps, as farmers sometimes say of -unprofitable cattle, she would soon have “eaten her head off” in the -poultry yard. She was not fearless,--like a woodchuck that once walked -up to me and smelled of my boot, as I stood still in the road near the -Crawford House,--but simply off her guard; and our finding her in such -a mood was simply a bit of good luck. Some day, possibly, we shall -catch a weasel asleep. - -In a vacation season, like our annual fortnight in New Hampshire, there -is no predicting which jaunt, if any, will turn out superior to all -the rest. It may be a longer and comparatively newer one (although -in Franconia we find few new ones now, partly because we no longer -seek them--the old is better, we are apt to say when any innovation -is suggested); or, thanks to something in the day or something in the -mood, it may be one of the shortest and most familiar. And when it -is over, there may be a sweetness in the memory, but little to talk -about; little “incident,” as editors say, little that goes naturally -into a notebook. In other words, the best walk, for us, is the one in -which we are happiest, the one in which we _feel_ the most, not of -necessity the one in which we _see_ the most; or, to put it differently -still, the one in which we _do_ see the most, but with - - “that inward eye - Which is the bliss of solitude.” - -Whatever we may call ourselves at home, among the mountains we are -lovers of pleasure. Our day’s work is to be happy. We take our text -from the good Longfellow as theologians take theirs from Scripture:-- - - “Enjoyment, and not sorrow, is our destined end.” - -We are not anxious to learn anything; our thoughts run not upon wisdom; -if we take note of a plant or a bird, it is rather for the fun of it -than for any scholarly purpose. We are boys out of school. I speak of -myself and of the man I have called my walking mate. The two collectors -of insects, of course, are more serious-minded. “No day without a -beetle,” is their motto, and their absorption, even in Franconia, is -in adding to the world’s stock of knowledge. Let them be respected -accordingly. Our creed is more frankly hedonistic; and their virtue--I -am free to confess it--shines the brighter for the contrast. - -This year, nevertheless, old Franconia had for us, also, one most -welcome novelty, the story of which I have kept, like the good -wine,--a pretty small glassful, I am aware,--for the end of the feast. -I had never enjoyed the old things better. Eight or nine years ago, -writing--in this magazine[2]--of June in Franconia, I expressed a fear -that our delight in the beauty of nature might grow to be less keenly -felt with advancing age; that we might ultimately be driven to a more -scientific use of the outward world, putting the exercise of curiosity, -what we call somewhat loftily the acquisition of knowledge, in the -place of rapturous contemplation. So it may yet fall out, to be sure, -since age is still advancing, but as far as present indications go, -nothing of the sort seems at all imminent. I begin to believe, in fact, -that things will turn the other way; that curiosity will rather lose -its edge, and the power of beauty strike deeper and deeper home. So -may it be! Then we shall not be dead while we live. Sure I am that the -glory of mountains, the splendor of autumnal forests, the sweetness of -valley prospects, were never more rapturously felt by me than during -the season just ended. And still, as I started just now to say, I had -special joy this year in a new specimen, an additional bird for my -memory and notebook. - -The forenoon of September 26, my fourth day, I spent on Garnet Hill. -The grand circuit of that hill is one of the best esteemed of our -longer expeditions. Formerly we did it always between breakfast and -dinner, having to speed the pace a little uncomfortably for the last -four or five miles; but times have begun to alter with us, or perhaps -we have profited by experience; for the last few years, at any rate, -we have made the trip an all-day affair, dining on Sunset Hill, and -loitering down through the Landaff Valley--with a side excursion, it -may be, to fill up the hours--in the afternoon. This trip, being, as I -say, one of those we most set by, I was determined to hold in reserve -against the arrival of my fellow foot-traveler; but there is also a -pleasant shorter course, not round the hill, but, so to speak, over -one side of it: out by the way of what I call High Bridge Road (never -having heard any name for it), and back by the road--hardly more than a -lane for much of its length--which traverses the hill diagonally on its -northeastern slope, and joins the regular Sugar Hill highway a little -below the Franconia Inn. - -I left the Littleton road for the road to the Streeter neighborhood, -crossed Gale River by a bridge pitched with much labor at a great -height above it (a good indication of the swelling to which mountain -streams are subject), passed two or three retired valley farms (where -were eight or ten sleek young calves, one of which, rather to my -surprise, ate from my hand a sprig of mint as if she liked the savor of -it), and then began a long, steep climb. For much of the distance the -road--narrow and very little traveled--is lined with dense alder and -willow thickets, excellent cover for birds. It was partly with this -place in my eye that I had chosen my route, remembering an hour of much -interest here some years ago with a large flock of migrants. To-day, as -it happened, the bushes were comparatively birdless. White-throats and -snowbirds were present, of course, and ruby-crowned kinglets, with a -solitary vireo or two, but nothing out of the ordinary. The prospect, -however, without being magnificent or--for Franconia--extensive, was -full of attractiveness. Gale River hastening through a gorge overhung -with forest, directly on my right, Streeter Pond farther away (two deer -had been shot beside it that morning, as I learned before night,--news -of that degree of importance travels fast), and the gay-colored hills -toward Littleton and Bethlehem,--maple grove on maple grove, with all -their banners flying,--these made a delightsome panorama, shifting with -every twist in the road and with every rod of the ascent; so that I had -excuse more than sufficient for continually stopping to breathe and -face about. In one place I remarked a goodly bed of coltsfoot leaves, -noticeable for their angular shape as well as for their peculiar -shade of green. I wished for a blossom. If the dandelion sometimes -anticipates the season, why not the coltsfoot? But I found no sign of -flower or bud. Probably the plant is of a less impatient habit; but I -have seen it so seldom that all my ideas about it are no better than -guesswork. Along the wayside was maiden-hair fern, also, which I do not -come upon any too often in this mountain country. - -Midway of the hill stands a solitary house, where I found my approach -spied upon through a crack between the curtain and the sash of what -seemed to be a parlor window; a flattering attention which, after the -manner of high public functionaries, I took as a tribute not to myself, -but to the rôle I was playing. No doubt travelers on foot are rare on -that difficult, out-of-the-way road, and the walker rather than the -man was what filled my lady’s eye; unless, as may easily have been -true, she was expecting to see a peddler’s pack. At this point the -road crooks a sharp elbow, and henceforth passes through cultivated -country,--orchards and ploughed land, grass fields and pasturage; -still without houses, however, and having a pleasant natural hedgerow -of trees and shrubbery. In one of the orchards was a great congregation -of sparrows and myrtle warblers, with sapsuckers, flickers, downy -woodpeckers, solitary vireos, and I forget what else, though I sat on -the wall for some time refreshing myself with their cheerful society. I -agreed with them that life was still a good thing. - -Then came my novelty. I was but a little way past this aviary of -an apple orchard when I approached a pile of brush,--dry branches -which had been heaped against the roadside bank some years ago, and -up through which bushes and weeds were growing. My eyes sought it -instinctively, and at the same moment a bird moved inside. A sparrow, -alone; a sparrow, and a new one! “A Lincoln finch!” I thought; and -just then the creature turned, and I saw his forward parts: a streaked -breast with a bright, well-defined buff band across it, as if the -streaks had been marked in first and then a wash of yellowish had -been laid on over them. Yes, a Lincoln finch! He was out of sight -almost before I saw him, however, and after a bit of feverish waiting -I squeaked. He did not come up to look at me, as I hoped he would do, -but the sudden noise startled him, and he moved slightly, enough so -that my eye again found him. This time, also, I saw his head and his -breast, and then he was lost again. Again I waited. Then I squeaked, -waited, and squeaked again, louder and longer than before. No answer, -and no sign of movement. You might have sworn there was no bird there; -and perhaps you would not have perjured yourself; for presently I -stepped up to the brush-heap and trampled it over, and still there was -no sign of life. Above the brush was a low stone wall, and beyond that -a bare ploughed field. How the fellow had slipped away there was no -telling. And that was the end of the story. But I had seen him, and he -was a Lincoln finch. It was a shabby interview he had granted me, after -keeping me waiting for almost twenty years; but then, I repeated for my -comfort, I had seen him. - -He was less confusingly like a song sparrow than I had been prepared to -find him. His general color (one of a bird’s best marks in life, hard -as it may be to derive an exact idea of it from printed descriptions), -gray with a greenish tinge,--a little suggestive of Henslow’s bunting, -as it struck me,--this, I thought, supposing it to be constant, -ought to catch the eye at a glance. Henceforth I should know what to -look for, and might expect better luck; although, if this particular -bird’s behavior was to be taken as a criterion, the books had been -quite within the mark in emphasizing the sly and elusive habit of the -species, and the consequent difficulty of prolonged and satisfactory -observation of it. - -The Lincoln finch, or Lincoln sparrow, the reader should know, is a -congener of the song sparrow and the swamp sparrow, a native mostly of -the far north, and while common enough as a migrant in many parts of -the United States, is, or is generally supposed to be, something of a -rarity in the Eastern States. - -Meanwhile, having beaten the brush over, and looked up the roadside -and down the roadside and over the wall, I went on my way, stopping -once for a feast of blackberries,--as many and as good as a man could -ask for, long, slender, sweet, and dead ripe; and at the top of the -road I cut across a hayfield to the lane before mentioned, that should -take me back to the Sugar Hill highway. Now the prospects were in front -of me, there was no more steepness of grade, I had seen Tom Lincoln’s -finch,[3] and the day was brighter than ever. Every sparrow that -stirred I must put my glass on; but not one was of the right complexion. - -Then, in a sugar grove not far from the Franconia Inn, I found myself -all at once in the midst of one of those traveling flocks that make so -delightful a break in a bird-lover’s day. I was in the midst of it, -I say; but the real fact was that the birds were passing through the -grove between me and the sky. For the time being the branches were -astir with wings. Such minutes are exciting. “Now or never,” a man says -to himself. Every second is precious. At this precise moment a warbler -is above your head, far up in the topmost bough perhaps, half hidden -by a leaf. If you miss him, he is gone forever. If you make him out, -well and good; he may be a rarity, a prize long waited for; or, quite -as likely, while busy with him you may let a ten times rarer one pass -unnoticed. In this game, as in any other, a man must run his chances; -though there is skill as well as luck in it, without doubt, and one -player will take a trick or two more than another, with the same hand. - -In the present instance, so far as my canvass showed, the “wave” was -made up of myrtle warblers, blackpolls, baybreasts, black-throated -greens, a chestnut-side, a Maryland yellow-throat, red-eyed vireos, -solitary vireos, one or more scarlet tanagers (in undress, of course, -and pretty late by my reckoning), ruby-crowned kinglets, chickadees, -winter wrens, goldfinches, song sparrows, and flickers. The last three -or four species, it is probable enough, were in the grove only by -accident, and are hardly to be counted as part of the south-bound -caravan. Several of the species were in good force, and doubtless some -species eluded me altogether. No man can look all ways at once; and in -autumn the eyes must do not only their own work, but that of the ears -as well. - -All the while the birds hastened on, flitting from tree to tree, -feeding a minute and then away, following the stream. I was especially -glad of the baybreasts, of which there were two at least, both very -distinctly marked, though in nothing like their spring plumage. I -saw only one other specimen this fall, but the name is usually in my -autumnal Franconia list. The chestnut-side, on the other hand, was the -first one I had ever found here at this season, and was correspondingly -welcome. - -After all, a catalogue of names gives but a meagre idea of such -a flock, except to those who have seen similar ones, and amused -themselves with them in a similar manner. But I had had the fun, -whether I can make any one else appreciate it or not, and between it -and my joy over the Lincoln finch I went home in high feather. - -Five days longer I followed the road alone. Every time a sparrow -darted into the bushes too quickly for me to name him, I thought of -_Melospiza lincolni_. Once, indeed, on the Bethlehem road, I believed -that I really saw a bird of that species; but it was in the act of -disappearing, and no amount of pains or patience--or no amount that I -had to spare--could procure me a second glimpse. - -On the sixth day came my friend, the second foot-passenger, and was -told of my good fortune; and together we began forthwith to walk--and -look at sparrows. This, also, was vain, until the morning of October -4. I was out first. A robin was cackling from a tall treetop, as I -stepped upon the piazza, and a song sparrow sang from a cluster of -bushes across the way. Other birds were there, and I went over to have -a look at them: two or three white-throats, as many song sparrows, and -a white-crown. Then by squeaking I called into sight two swamp sparrows -(migrants newly come, they must be, to be found in such a place), and -directly afterward up hopped a small grayish sparrow, seen at a glance -to be like my bird of nine days before,--like him in looks, but not -in behavior. He conducted himself in the most accommodating manner, -was full of curiosity, not in the least shy, and afforded me every -opportunity to look him over to my heart’s content. - -In the midst of it all I heard my comrade’s footfall on the piazza, -and gave him a whistle. He came at once, wading through the wet grass -in his slippers. He knew from my attitude--so he firmly declared -afterward--that it was a Lincoln finch I was gazing at! And just as he -drew near, the sparrow, sitting in full view and facing us, in a way -to show off his peculiar marks to the best advantage, uttered a single -_cheep_, thoroughly distinctive, or at least quite unlike any sparrow’s -note with which I am familiar; as characteristic, I should say, as -the song sparrow’s _tut_. Then he dropped to the ground. “Yes, I saw -him, and heard the note,” my companion said; and he hastened into the -house for his boots and his opera-glass. In a few minutes he was back -again, fully equipped, and we set ourselves to coax the fellow into -making another display of himself. Sure enough, he responded almost -immediately, and we had another satisfying observation of him, though -this time he kept silence. I was especially interested to find, what -I had on general considerations suspected, that Lincoln finches were -like other members of their family. Take them right (by themselves, and -without startling them to begin with), and they could be as complaisant -as one could desire, no matter how timid and elusive they might be -under different conditions. Our bird was certainly a jewel. For a while -he pleased us by perching side by side with a song sparrow. “You see -how much smaller I am,” he might have been saying; “you may know me -partly by that.” - -And we fancied we should know him thereafter; but a novice’s knowledge -is only a novice’s, as we were to be freshly reminded that very day. -Our jaunt was round Garnet Hill, the all-day expedition before referred -to. I will not rehearse the story of it; but while we were on the -farther side of the hill, somewhere in Lisbon, we found the roadsides -swarming with sparrows,--a mixed flock, song sparrows, field sparrows, -chippers, and white-crowns. Among them one of us by and by detected a -grayish, smallish bird, and we began hunting him, from bush to bush -and from one side of the road to the other, carrying on all the while -an eager debate as to his identity. Now we were sure of him, and now -everything was unsettled. His breast was streaked and had a yellow -band across it. His color and size were right, as well as we could -say,--so decidedly so that there was no difficulty whatever in picking -him out at a glance after losing him in a flying bunch; but some of his -motions were pretty song-sparrow-like, and what my fellow observer was -most staggered by, he showed a blotch, a running together of the dark -streaks, in the middle of the breast,--a point very characteristic of -the song sparrow, but not mentioned in book descriptions of Melospiza -lincolni. So we chased him and discussed him (that was the time for a -gun, the professional will say), till he got away from us for good. - -Was he a Lincoln finch? Who knows? We left the question open. But I -believe he was. The main reason, not to say the only one, for our -uncertainty was the pectoral blotch; and that, I have since learned, -is often seen in specimens of Melospiza lincolni. Why the manuals make -no reference to it I cannot tell; as I cannot tell why they omit the -same point in describing the savanna sparrow. In scientific books, as -in “popular” magazine articles, many things must no doubt be passed -over for lack of room. In any case, it is not the worst misfortune that -could befall us to have some things left for our own finding out. - -And after all, the question was not of supreme importance. Though I was -delighted to have seen a new bird, and doubly delighted to have seen it -in Franconia, the great joy of my visit was not in any such fragment of -knowledge, but in that bright and glorious world; mountains and valleys -beautiful in themselves, and endeared by the memory of happy days among -them. Sometimes I wonder whether the pleasures of memory may not be -worth the price of growing old. - - - - -SPRING - - “He would now be up every morning by break of day, walking to and fro - in the valley.”--BUNYAN. - - -It was a white day, the day of the red cherry,--by the almanac the 20th -of May. Once in the hill country, the train ran hour after hour through -a world of shrubs and small trees, loaded every one with blossoms. -Their number was amazing. I should not have believed there were so -many in all New Hampshire. The snowy branches fairly whitened the -woods; as if all the red-cherry trees of the country round about were -assembled along the track to celebrate a festival. The spectacle--for -it was nothing less--made me think of the annual dogwood display as I -had witnessed it in the Alleghanies and further south. I remembered, -too, a similar New England pageant of some years ago; a thing of annual -occurrence, of course, but never seen by me before or since. Then it -happened that I came down from Vermont (this also was in May) just -at the time when the shadbushes were in their glory. Like the wild -red-cherry trees, as I saw them now, they seemed to fill the world. -Such miles on miles of a floral panorama are among the memorable -delights of spring travel. - -For the cherry’s sake I was glad that my leaving home had been delayed -a week or two beyond my first intention; though I thought then, as I do -still, that an earlier start would have shown me something more of real -spring among the mountains, which, after all, was what I had come out -to see. - -The light showers through which I drove over the hills from Littleton -were gone before sunset, and as the twilight deepened I strolled up -the Butter Hill road as far as the grove of red pines, just to feel -the ground under my feet and to hear the hermit thrushes. How divinely -they sang, one on either side of the way, voice answering to voice, the -very soul of music, out of the darkening woods! I agree with a friendly -correspondent who wrote me, the other day, fresh from a summer in -France, that the nightingale is no such singer. I have never heard the -nightingale, but that does not alter my opinion. Formerly I wished that -the hermit, and all the rest of our woodland thrushes, would practice -a longer and more continuous strain. Now I think differently; for I -see now that what I looked upon as a blemish is really the perfection -of art. Those brief, deliberate phrases, breaking one by one out of -the silence, lift the soul higher than any smooth-flowing warble could -possibly do. Worship has no gift of long-breathed fluency. If she -speaks at all, it is in the way of ejaculation: “Therefore let thy -words be few,” said the Preacher,--a text which is only a modern Hebrew -version of what the hermit thrush has been saying here in the White -Mountains for ten thousand years. - -One of the principal glories of Franconia is the same in spring as in -autumn,--the colors of the forest. There is no describing them: greens -and reds of all tender and lovely shades; not to speak of the exquisite -haze-blue, or blue-purple, which mantles the still budded woods on the -higher slopes. For the reds I was quite unprepared. They have never -been written about, so far as I know, doubtless because they have never -been seen. The scribbling tourist is never here till long after they -are gone. In fact, I stayed late enough, on my present visit, to see -the end of them. I knew, of course, that young maple leaves, like old -ones, are of a ruddy complexion;[4] but somehow I had never considered -that the massing of the trees on hillsides would work the same -gorgeous, spectacular effect in spring as in autumn,--broad patches of -splendor hung aloft, a natural tapestry, for the eye to feast upon. Not -that May is as gaudy as September. There are no brilliant yellows, and -the reds are many shades less fiery than autumn furnishes; but what is -lacking in intensity is more than made up in delicacy, as the bloom -of youth is fairer than any hectic flush. The glory passed, as I have -said. Before the 1st of June it had deepened, and then disappeared; but -the sight of it was of itself enough to reward my journey. - -The clouds returned after the rain, and my first forenoon was spent -under an umbrella on the Bethlehem plateau, not so much walking as -standing about; now in the woods, now in the sandy road, now in -the dooryard of an empty house. It was Sunday; the rain, quiet and -intermittent, rather favored music; and all in all, things were pretty -much to my mind,--plenty to see and hear, yet all of a sweetly familiar -sort, such as one hardly thinks of putting into a notebook. Why record, -as if it could be forgotten or needed to be remembered, the lisping -of happy chickadees or the whistle of white-throated sparrows? Or -why speak of shadblow and goldthread, or even of the lovely painted -trilliums, with their three daintily crinkled petals, streaked with -rose-purple? The trilliums, indeed, well deserved to be spoken of: so -bright and bold they were; every blossom looking the sun squarely in -the face,--in great contrast with the pale and bashful wake-robin, -which I find (by searching for it) in my own woods. One after another -I gathered them (pulled them, to speak with poetic literalness), each -fresher and handsomer than the one before it, till the white stems -made a handful. - -“Oh,” said a man on the piazza, as I returned to the hotel, “I see you -have nosebleed.” I was putting my hand to my pocket, wondering why I -should have been taken so childishly, when it came over me what he -meant. He was looking at the trilliums, and explained, in answer to a -question, that he had always heard them called “nosebleed.” Somewhere, -then,--I omitted to inquire where,--this is their “vulgar” name. In -Franconia the people call them “Benjamins,” which has a pleasant -Biblical sound,--better than “nosebleed,” at all events,--though to my -thinking “trillium” is preferable to either of them, both for sound -and for sense. People cry out against “Latin names.” But why is Latin -worse than Hebrew? And who could ask anything prettier or easier than -trillium, geranium, anemone, and hepatica? - -The next morning I set out for Echo Lake. At that height, in that -hollow among the mountains, the season must still be young. There, if -anywhere, I should find the early violet and the trailing mayflower. -And whatever I found, or did not find, at the end of the way, I should -have made another ascent of the dear old Notch road, every rod of it -the pleasanter for happy memories. I had never traveled it in May, with -the glossy-leaved clintonia yet in the bud, and the broad, grassy golf -links above the Profile House farm all frosty with houstonia bloom. -And many times as I had been over it, I had never known till now that -rhodora stood along its very edge. To-day, with the pink blossoms -brightening the crooked, leafless, knee-high stems, not even my eyes -could miss it. Our one small pear-leaved willow, near the foot of -Hardscrabble, was in flower, its maroon leaves partly grown. Well I -remembered the June morning when I lighted upon it, and the interest -shown by the senior botanist of our little company when I reported the -discovery, at the dinner table. He went up that very afternoon to see -it for himself; and year after year, while he lived, he watched over -it, more than once cautioning the road-menders against its destruction. -How many times he and I have stopped beside it, on our way up and -down! The “Torrey willow” he always called it, stroking my vanity; and -I liked the word. - -Now a chipmunk speaks to me, as I pass; it is not his fault, nor mine -either, perhaps, that I do not understand him; and now, hearing a twig -snap, I glance up in time to see a woodchuck scuttling out of sight -under the high, overhanging bank. So _he_ is a dweller in these upper -mountain woods![5] I should have thought him too nice an epicure to -feel himself at home in such diggings. But who knows? Perhaps he finds -something hereabout--wood-sorrel or what not--that is more savory even -than young clover leaves and early garden sauce. From somewhere on my -right comes the sweet--honey-sweet--warble of a rose-breasted grosbeak; -and almost over my head, at the topmost point of a tall spruce, sits -a Blackburnian warbler, doing his little utmost to express himself. -His pitch is as high as his perch, and his tone, pure _z_, is like the -finest of wire. Another water-bar surmounted, and a bay-breast sings, -and lets me see him,--a bird I always love to look at, and a song that -I always have to learn anew, partly because I hear it so seldom, partly -because of its want of individuality: a single hurried phrase, pure -_z_ like the Blackburnian’s, and of the same wire-drawn tenuity. These -warblers are poor hands at warbling, but they are musical to the eye. -By this rule,--if throats were made to be looked at, and judged by the -feathers on them,--the Blackburnian might challenge comparison with any -singer under the sun. - -As the road ascends, the aspect of things grows more and more -springlike,--or less and less summer-like. Black-birch catkins are just -beginning to fall, and a little higher, not far from the Bald Mountain -path, I notice a sugar maple still hanging full of pale straw-colored -tassels,--encouraging signs to a man who was becoming apprehensive lest -he had arrived too late. - -Then, as I pass the height of land and begin the gentle descent into -the Notch, fronting the white peak of Lafayette and the black face of -Eagle Cliff, I am aware of a strange sensation, as if I had stepped -into another world: bare, leafless woods and sudden blank silence. -All the way hitherto birds have been singing on either hand, my ear -picking out the voices one by one, while flies and mosquitoes have -buzzed continually about my head; here, all in a moment, not a bird, -not an insect,--a stillness like that of winter. Minute after minute, -rod after rod, and not a breath of sound,--not so much as the stirring -of a leaf. I could not have believed such a transformation possible. -It is uncanny. I walk as in a dream. The silence lasts for at least a -quarter of a mile. Then a warbler breaks it for an instant, and leaves -it, if possible, more absolute than before. I am going southward, and -downhill; but I am going into the Notch, into the very shadow of the -mountains, where Winter makes his last rally against the inevitable. - -And yes, here are some of the early flowers I have come in search of: -the dear little yellow violets, whose glossy, round leaves, no more -than half-grown as yet, seem to love the very border of a snowbank. -Here, too, is a most flourishing patch of spring-beauties, and another -of adder’s-tongue,--dog-tooth violet, so called. Of the latter there -must be hundreds of acres in Franconia. I have seen the freckled leaves -everywhere, and now and then a few belated blossoms. Here I have it at -its best, the whole bed thick with buds and freshly blown flowers. But -the round-leaved violet is what I am chiefly taken with. The very type -and pattern of modesty, I am ready to say. The spring-beauty masses -itself; and though every blossom, if you look at it, is a miracle of -delicacy,--lustrous pink satin, with veinings of a deeper shade,--it -may fairly be said to make a show. But the violets, scattered, and -barely out of the ground, must be sought after one by one. So meek, and -yet so bold!--part of the beautiful vernal paradox, that the lowly and -the frail are the first to venture. - -As I come down to the lakeside,--making toward the lower end, whither -I always go, because there the railroad is least obtrusively in sight -and the mountains are faced to the best advantage,--two or three -solitary sandpipers flit before me, tweeting and bobbing, and a -winter wren (invisible, of course) sings from a thicket at my elbow. -A jolly songster he is, with the clearest and finest of tones--a true -fife--and an irresistible accent and rhythm. A bird by himself. This -fellow hurries and hurries (am I wrong in half remembering a line by -some poet about a bird that “hurries and precipitates”?),[6] till the -tempo becomes too much for him; the notes can no longer be taken, and, -like a boy running down too steep a hill, he finishes with a slide. -I think of those pianoforte passages which the most lightninglike of -performers--Paderewski himself--are reduced to playing ignominiously -with the back of one finger. I know not their technical name, if they -have one,--finger-nail runs, perhaps. I remember, also, Thoreau’s -description of a song heard in Tuckerman’s Ravine and here in the -Franconia Notch. He could never discover the author of it, but pretty -certainly it was the winter wren. “Most peculiar and memorable,” he -pronounces it, like a “fine corkscrew stream issuing with incessant -tinkle from a cork.” “Tinkle” is exactly the word. Trust Thoreau to -find _that_, though he could not find the singer. If the thrushes are -left out of the account, there is no voice in the mountains that I am -gladder to hear. - -Near the outlet of the lake, in a shaded hollow, lies a deep snowbank, -and not far away the ground is matted with trailing arbutus, still -in plentiful bloom. One of the most attractive things here is the -few-flowered shadbush (_Amelanchier oligocarpa_). The common _A. -Canadensis_ grows near by; and it is astonishing how unlike the two -species look, although the difference (the visible difference, I mean) -is mostly in the arrangement of the flowers,--clustered in one case, -separately disposed in the other. To-day the “average observer” would -look twice before suspecting any close relationship between them; a -week or two hence he would look a dozen times before remarking any -distinction. With them, as with the red cherry, it is the blossom that -makes the bush. - -So much for my first May morning on the Notch road and by the lake: a -few particulars caught in passing, to be taken for what they are,-- - - “Samples and sorts, not for themselves alone, but for their - atmosphere.” - -In the afternoon I went over into the Landaff Valley, having in mind a -restful, level-country stroll, with a view especially to the probable -presence of Tennessee warblers in that quarter. One or two had been -singing constantly near the hotel for two days (ever since my arrival, -that is), and Sunday I had heard another beside the Bethlehem road. -Whether they were migrants only, or had settled in Franconia for the -season, they ought, it seemed to me, to be found also in the big -Landaff larch swamp, where we had seen them so often in June, ten or -twelve years ago. As I had heard the song but once since that time, I -was naturally disposed to make the most of the present opportunity. - -I turned in at the old hay barn,--one of my favorite resorts, where -I have seen many a pretty bunch of autumnal transients,--and sure -enough, a Tennessee’s voice was one of the first to greet me. _This_ -fellow sang as a Tennessee ought to sing, I said to myself. By which -I meant that his song was clearly made up of three parts, just as -I had kept it in memory; whereas the birds near the hotel, as well -as the one on the Bethlehem road, divided theirs but once. No great -matter, somebody will say; but a self-respecting man likes to have his -recollections justified, even about trifles, particularly when he has -confided them to print.[7] - -The swamp had begun well with its old eulogist; but better things -were in store. I passed an hour or more in the woods, for the most -part sitting still (which is pretty good after-dinner ornithology), -and had just taken the road again when a bevy of talkative chickadees -came straggling down the rim of the swamp, flitting from one tree to -another,--a morsel here and a morsel there,--after their usual manner -while on the march. Now, then, for a few migratory warblers, which -always may be looked for in such company. - -True to the word, my glass was hardly in play before a bay-breast -showed himself, in magnificent plumage; then came a Blackburnian, -also in high feather, handsomer even than the bay-breast, but less -of a rarity; and then, all in a flash, I caught a glimpse of some -bright-colored, black-and-yellow bird that, almost certainly, from -an indefinable something half seen about the head, could not be a -magnolia. “That should be a Cape May!” I said aloud to myself. Even as -I spoke, however, he was out of sight. Down the road I went, trying to -keep abreast of the flock, which moved much too rapidly for my comfort. -Again I saw what might have been the Cape May, but again there was -nothing like certainty. And again I lost him. With the trees so thick, -and the birds so small and so active, it was impossible to do better. I -had missed my chance, I thought; but just then something stirred among -the leaves of a fir tree close by me, on the very edge of the swamp, -and the next moment a bird stepped upon the outermost twig, as near me -as he could get, and stood there fully displayed: a splendid Cape May, -in superb color, my first New England specimen. “Look at me,” he said; -“this is for your benefit.” And I looked with both eyes. Who would not -be an ornithologist, with sights like this to reward him? - -The procession moved on, by the air line, impossible for me to -follow. The Cape May, of course, had departed with the rest. So I -assumed,--without warrant, as will presently appear. But I had no -quarrel with Fate. For a plodding, wingless creature, long accustomed -to his disabilities, I was being handsomely used. The soul is always -seeking new things, says a celebrated French philosopher, and is -always pleased when it is shown more than it had hoped for. This is -preëminently true of rare warblers. Now I would cross the bridge, walk -once more under the arch of willows,--happy that I _could_ walk, being -a man only,--and back to the village again by the upper road. For a -half mile on that road the prospect is such that no mortal need desire -a better one. - -First, however, I must train my glass upon a certain dark object out -in the meadow, to see whether it was a stump (it was motionless enough -for one, but I didn’t remember it there) or a woodchuck. It turned out -to be a woodchuck, erect upon his haunches, his fore paws lifted in an -attitude of devotion. The sight was common just now in all Franconia -grass land, no matter in what direction my jaunts took me. And always -the attitude was the same, as if now were the ground-hog’s Lent. “Watch -and pray” is his motto; and he thrives upon it like a monk. Though the -legislature sets a price on his head, he keeps in better flesh than -the average legislator. Well done, say I. May his shadow never grow -less! I like him, as I like the crow. Health and long life to both of -them,--wildings that will not be put down nor driven into the outer -wilderness, be the hand of civilization never so hostile. They were -here before man came, and will be here, it is most likely, after he is -gone; unless, as the old planet’s fires go out, man himself becomes a -hibernator. I have heard a hunted woodchuck, at bay in a stone wall, -gnashing his teeth against a dog; and I have seen a mother woodchuck -with a litter of young ones playing about her as she lay at full length -sunning herself, the very picture of maternal satisfaction: and my -belief is that woodchucks have as honest a right as most of us to life, -liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. - -As I walked under the willows,--empty to-day, though I remembered more -than one happy occasion when, in better company, I had found them alive -with wings,--I paused to look through the branches at a large hawk and -a few glossy-backed barn swallows quartering over the meadow. Then, -all at once, there fell on my ears a shower of bobolink notes, and the -birds, twenty or more together, dropped into the short grass before -me. Every one of them was a male. - -A strange custom it is, this Quakerish separation of the sexes. It -must be the females’ work, I imagine. Modesty and bashfulness are -feminine traits,--modesty, bashfulness, and maidenly discretion. The -wise virgin shunneth even the appearance of evil. Let the males flock -by themselves, and travel in advance. And the males practice obedience, -not for virtue’s sake, I guess, but of necessity; encouraged, no doubt, -by an unquestioning belief that the wise virgins will come trooping -after, and be found scattered conveniently over the meadows, each by -herself, when the marriage bell strikes. That blissful hour was now -close at hand, and my twenty gay bachelors knew it. Every bird of them -had on his wedding garment. No wonder they sang. - -It took me a long time to make that half mile on the upper road, with -the narrow, freshly green valley outspread just below, the river -running through it, and beyond a royal horizonful of mountains; -some near and green, some farther away and blue, and some--the -highest--still with the snow on them: Moosilauke, Kinsman, Cannon, -Lafayette, Garfield, the Twins, Washington, Clay, Jefferson, and Adams; -all perfectly clear, the sky covered with high clouds. A sober day it -was, sober and still, though the bobolinks seemed not so to regard it. -While I looked at the landscape, seating myself now and then to enjoy -it quietly, I kept an ear open for the shout of a pileated woodpecker, -a wildly musical sound often to be heard on this hillside; but to-day -there was nothing nearer to it than a crested flycatcher’s scream, out -of the big sugar orchard. - -On my way down the hill toward the red bridge, I met a man riding in -some kind of rude contrivance, not to be called a wagon or a cart, -between two pairs of wheels. He lay flat on his back, as in a hammock, -and, to judge by his tools and the mortar on his clothing, must have -been a mason returning from his work. He was “taking it easy,” at all -events. We saluted each other, and he stopped his horse and sat up. -“You used to be round here, didn’t you?” he asked. Yes, I said, I had -been here a good deal, off and on. He thought he remembered me. He had -noticed me getting out of Mr. Prime’s carriage at the corner. “Let’s -see,” he said: “you used to be looking after the birds a good deal, -didn’t you?” I pleaded guilty, and he seemed glad. “You are well?” he -added, and drove on. Neither of us had said anything in particular, -but there are few events of the road more to my taste than such chance -bits of neighborly intercourse. The man’s tone and manner gave me the -feeling of real friendliness. If I had fallen among thieves, I confide -that he would have been neither a priest nor a Levite. May his trowel -find plenty of work and fair wages. - -This was on May 22. The next three days were occupied with all-day -excursions to Mount Agassiz, to Streeter Pond, and to Lonesome Lake -path. With so many hands beckoning to me, the Cape May warbler -was well-nigh forgotten. On the morning of the 26th, however, the -weather being dubious, I betook myself again to the Landaff swamp, -entering it, as usual, by the wood-road at the barn. Many birds were -there: a tanager (uncommon hereabout), olive-sided flycatchers, -alder flycatchers (first seen on the 23d, and already abundant), -a yellow-bellied flycatcher (the recluse of the family), magnolia -warblers, Canada warblers, parula warblers (three beautiful species), a -Tennessee warbler, a Swainson thrush (whistling), a veery (snarling), -and many more. The Swainson thrush, by the way, although present, -in small numbers apparently, from May 22, was not heard to sing a -note until June 1,--ten days of silence! Yet it sings freely on its -migration, even as far south as Georgia. Close at hand was a grouse, -who performed again and again in what seemed to me a highly original -manner. First he delivered three or four quick beats. Then he rested -for a second or two, after which he proceeded to drum in the ordinary -way, beginning with deliberation, and gradually accelerating the beats, -till the ear could no longer follow them, and they became a whir. That -prelude of four quick, decisive strokes was a novelty to my ears, so -far as I could remember. - -I had taken my fill of this pleasant chorus, and was on my way back -to the road, when suddenly I heard something that was better than -“pleasant,”--a peculiarly faint and listless four-syllabled warbler -song, which might be described as a monotonous _zee-zee-zee-zee_. The -singer was not a blackpoll: of that I felt certain on the instant. -What could it be, then, but a Cape May? That was a shrewd guess (I had -heard the Cape May once, in Virginia, some years before); for presently -the fellow moved into sight, and I had a feast of admiring him, as he -flitted about among the fir trees, feeding and singing. If he was the -one I had seen in the same wood on the 22d, he was making a long stay. -Still I did not venture to think of him as anything but a migrant. The -Tennessee had sung incessantly for five days in the Gale River larches -near the hotel, as already mentioned, and then had taken flight. - -The next morning, nevertheless, there was nothing for it--few as my -days were growing--but I must visit the place again, on the chance of -finding the Cape May still there. And he _was_ there; sitting, for part -of the time, at the very tip (on the terminal bud, to speak exactly) -of a pointed fir. There, as elsewhere, he sang persistently, sometimes -with three _zees_, sometimes with four, but always in an unhurried -monotone. It was the simplest and most primitive kind of music, to -say the best of it,--many an insect would perhaps have done as well; -but somehow, with the author of it before me, I pronounced it good. A -Tennessee was close by, and (what I particularly enjoyed) a tanager -sat in the sun on the topmost spray of a tall white pine, blazing and -singing. “This is the sixth day of the Cape May here, yet I cannot -think he means to summer.” So my pencil finished the day’s entry. - -Whatever his intentions, I could not afford to spend my whole vacation -in learning them, and it was not until the afternoon of the 31st that -I went again in search of him. Then he gave me an exciting chase; for, -thank Fortune, a chase may be exciting though the bird is not a “game -bird,” and the man is not a gunner. At first, to be sure, the question -seemed in a fair way to be quickly settled. I was hardly in the swamp -before I heard the expected _zee-zee_. The bird was still here! But -after half a dozen repetitions of the strain he fell silent; and he had -not shown himself. For a full hour I paced up and down the path, within -a space of forty rods, fighting mosquitoes and awake to every sound. -If the bird was here, I meant to make sure of him. This was the tenth -day since I had first seen him, and to find him still present would -make it practically certain that he was here for the season. As for -what I had already heard,--well, the notes were the Cape May’s, fast -enough; but if that were all, I should go away and straightway begin to -question whether my ears had not deceived me. In matters of this kind, -an ornithologist walks by sight. - -Once, from farther up the path, I heard a voice that might be the one -I was listening for; but as I hastened toward it, it developed into -the homely, twisting song of a black-and-white creeper. Heard at a -sufficient distance, this too familiar ditty loses every other one -of its notes, and is easily mistaken for something else,--especially -if something else happens to be on a man’s mind,--as I had found to -my chagrin on more than one occasion. Eye and ear both are never more -liable to momentary deception than when they are most tensely alert. - -Meanwhile, nothing had been heard of the Tennessee, and it became -evident that he had moved on. The customary water thrush was singing -at short intervals; gayly dressed warblers darted in and out of the -low evergreens, almost brushing my elbows, much to their surprise; and -an olive-sided flycatcher kept up a persistent _pip-pip_. Something -was troubling his equanimity; I had no idea what. It had been one of -my special enjoyments, on this vacation trip, to renew my acquaintance -with him and his humbler relative, the alder flycatcher,--the latter -a commonplace body, whose emphatic _quay-quéer_ had now become one -of the commonest of sounds. The olive-side, by the bye, for all his -apparent wildness, did not disdain to visit the shade trees about the -hotel; and once a catbird, not far off, amused me by whistling a most -exact reproduction of his breezy _quit, quee-quée-o_. If the voice had -come from a treetop instead of from the depths of a low thicket, the -illusion would have been complete. It is the weakness of imitators, -always and everywhere, to forget one thing or another. - -Still the bird I was waiting for made no sign, and finally I left the -swamp and started up the road. Possibly he had gone in that direction, -where I first saw him. No, he was not there, and, giving over the hunt, -I turned back toward the village. Then, as I came opposite the barn -again, I heard the notes in the old place, and hastened up the path. -This time I was lucky, for there the bird sat on the outermost spray of -a fir-tree branch. It was his most characteristic attitude. I can see -him there now. - -As I quitted the swamp for good, a man in a buggy was coming down the -road. I put on my coat, and as he overtook me I said, “I was putting on -my coat because I felt sure you would invite me to ride.” He smiled, -and bade me get in; and though he had been going only to the post -office, he insisted upon carrying me to the hotel, a mile beyond. -Better still, we had a pleasant, humanizing talk of a kind to be -serviceable to a narrow specialist, such as I seemed just now in danger -of becoming. The use of tobacco was one of our topics, I remember, -and the mutual duties of husbands and wives another. My host had seen -a good deal of the world, it appeared, and withal was no little of a -philosopher. I hope it will not sound egotistical if I say that he gave -every sign of finding me a capable listener. - -Once more only I saw the Cape May. His claim to be accounted a summer -resident of Franconia was by this time moderately well established; -but on my last spare afternoon (June 3) I could not do less than -pay him a farewell visit. After looking for him in vain for twenty -years (I speak as a New Englander), it seemed the part of prudence -to cultivate his acquaintance while I could. At the entrance to the -swamp, therefore, I put on my gloves, tied a handkerchief about my -neck, and broke a stem of meadow-sweet for use as a mosquito switch. -The season was advancing, and field ornithology was becoming more and -more a battle. I walked up the path for the usual distance (passing -a few lady’s-slippers, one of them pure white) without hearing the -voice for which I was listening. On the return, however, I caught it, -or something like it. Then, as I went in pursuit (a slow process, for -caution’s sake), the song turned, or seemed to turn, into something -different,--louder, longer, and faster. Is that the same bird, I -thought, or another? Whatever it was, it eluded my eye, and after a -little the voice ceased. I retreated to the path, where I could look -about me more readily and use my switch to better advantage, and anon -the faint, lazy _zee-zee-zee_ was heard again. _This_ was the Cape -May, at all events. I was sure of it. Still I wanted a look. Carefully -I edged toward the sound, bending aside the branches, and all at -once a bird flew into the spruce over my head. Then began again the -quicker, four-syllabled _zip-zip_, I craned my neck and fanned away -mosquitoes, all the while keeping my glass in position. A twig stirred. -Still the bird sang unseen,--the same hurried phrase, not quite -monotonous, since the pitch rose a little on the last couplet. That -was a suspicious circumstance, and by this time I should not have been -mightily astonished if a Blackburnian had disclosed himself. Another -twig stirred. Still I could see nothing; and still I fought mosquitoes -(a plague on them!) and kept my eye steady. Then the fellow did again -what he had done so often,--stepped out upon a flat, horizontal branch, -pretty well up, and posed there, singing and preening his feathers. I -could see his yellow breast streaked with jet, his black crown, his -reddish cheeks, with the yellow patch behind the rufous, and finally -the big white blotch on the wing. We have lovelier birds, no doubt -(the Cape May’s colors are a trifle “splashy” for a nice taste,--for -my own taste, I mean to say), but few, if any, whose costume is more -strikingly original. - -I stayed by him till my patience failed, the mosquitoes helping to -wear it out; and all the while he reiterated that comparatively lively -_zip-zip_, so very different from the listless _zee-zee_, which I had -seen him use on previous occasions, and had heard him use to-day. -He was singing now, I said to myself, more like the bird at Natural -Bridge, the only other one I had ever heard. It was pleasant to find -that even this tenth-rate performer, one of the poorest of a poor -family, had more than one tune in his music box. - -My spring vacation was planned to be botanical rather than -ornithological; but we are not the masters of our own fate, though we -sometimes try to think so, and my sketch is turning out a bird piece, -after all. The truth is, I was in the birds’ country, and it was the -birds’ hour. They waked me every morning,--veeries, bobolinks, vireos, -sparrows, and what not;[8] and as the day began, so it continued. I -hope I was not blind to other things. I remember at this moment how -rejoiced I was at coming all unexpectedly upon a little bunch of yellow -lady’s-slippers,--nine blossoms, I believe; rare enough and pretty -enough to excite the dullest man’s enthusiasm. But the fact remains, -if comparisons are to be insisted upon, that a creature like the Cape -May warbler has all the beauty of a flower, with the added charm of -voice and motion and elusiveness. The lady’s-slippers would wait for -me,--unless somebody else picked them,--but the warbler could be -trusted to lead me a chase, and give me, as the saying is, a run for my -money. In other words, he was more interesting, and goes better into a -story. - -My delight in him was the greater for a consideration yet to be -specified. Twelve or thirteen years ago, when a party of us were in -Franconia in June, we undertook a list of the birds of the township,--a -list which the scientific ornithologist of the company afterward -printed.[9] Now, returning to the place by myself, it became a point of -honor with me to improve our work by the addition of at least a name or -two. And the first candidate was the Cape May. - -The second was of a widely different sort; one of my most familiar -friends, though more surprising as a bird of the White Mountains than -even the Cape May. I speak of the wood thrush, the most southern member -of the noble group of singers to which it belongs,--the _Hylocichlæ_, -so called. It is to be regretted that we have no collective English -name for them, especially as their vocal quality--by which I mean -something not quite the same as musical ability--is such as to set them -beyond comparison above all other birds of North America, if not of the -world. - -My first knowledge of this piece of good fortune was on the 29th of -May. I stood on the Notch railway, intent upon a mourning warbler, -noting how fond of red-cherry trees he and his fellows seemingly were, -when I was startled out of measure by a wood thrush’s voice from -the dense maple woods above me. There was no time to look for him; -and happily there was no need. He was one of the consummate artists -of his race (among the members of which there is great unevenness in -this regard), possessing all those unmistakable peculiarities which at -once distinguish the wood thrush’s song from the hermit’s, with which -alone a careless listener might confound it: the sudden drop to a deep -contralto (the most glorious bit of vocalism to be heard in our woods), -and the tinkle or spray of bell-like tones at the other extreme of the -gamut. As with the Cape May, so with him, the question was, Will he -stay? - -Two days later I came down the track again. A hermit was in tune, and -presently a wood thrush joined him. “His tone is fuller and louder -than the hermit’s,” says my pencil,--flattered, no doubt, at finding -itself in a position to speak a word of momentary positiveness touching -a question of superiority long in dispute, and likely to remain in -dispute while birds sing and men listen to them. A quarter of a mile -farther, and I came to the sugar grove. Here a second bird was -singing, just where I had heard him two days before. Him I sat down to -enjoy; and at that moment, probably because he had seen me (and had -seen me stop), he broke out with a volley of those quick, staccato, -inimitably emphatic, whip-snapping calls,--_pip-pip_,--which are more -characteristic of the species than even the song itself. So there were -two male wood thrushes, and presumably two pairs, in this mountainside -forest! - -On the 1st of June I heard the song there again, though I was forced -to wait for it; and three days afterward the story was the same. I -ought to have looked for nests, but time failed me. To the best of -my knowledge, the bird has never been reported before from the White -Mountain region, though it is well known to breed in some parts of -Canada, where I have myself seen it. - -Here, then, were two notable accessions to our local catalogue. The -only others (a few undoubted migrants--Wilson’s black-cap warbler, the -white-crowned sparrow, and the solitary sandpiper--being omitted) -were a single meadow lark and a single yellow-throated vireo. The lark -seemed to be unknown to Franconia people, and my specimen may have -been only a straggler. He sang again and again on May 22, but I heard -nothing from him afterward, though I passed the place often. The vireo -was singing in a sugar grove on the 3d of June,--a date on which, -accidents apart, he should certainly have been at home for the summer. - -Because I have had so much to say about the Cape May warbler and -the wood thrush, it is not to be assumed that I mean to set them in -the first place, nor even that I had in them the highest pleasure. -They surprised me, and surprise is always more talkative than simple -appreciation; but the birds that ministered most to my enjoyment were -the hermit and the veery. The veery is not an every-day singer with me -at home, and the hermit, for some years past, has made himself almost -a stranger. I hardly know which of the two put me under the greater -obligation. The veery sang almost continually, and a good veery is a -singer almost out of competition. His voice lacks the ring of the wood -thrush’s and the hermit’s; it never dominates the choir; but with the -coppice to itself and the listener close by, it has sometimes a quality -irresistible; I do not hesitate to characterize it as angelic. Of this -kind was the voice of a bird that used to sing under my Franconia -window at half past three o’clock, in the silence of the morning. - -The surpassing glory of the veery’s song, as all lovers of American -bird music may be presumed by this time to know, lies in its harmonic, -double-stopping effect,--an effect, or quality, as beautiful as it is -peculiar. One day, while I stood listening to it under the best of -conditions, admiring the wonderful arpeggio (I know no less technical -word for it), my pencil suddenly grew poetic. “The veery’s fingers are -quick on the harp-strings,” it wrote. His is perfect Sunday music,--and -the hermit’s no less so. And in the same class I should put the simple -chants of the field sparrow and the vesper. The so-called “preaching” -of the red-eyed vireo is utter worldliness in the comparison. - -Happy Franconia! This year, if never before, it had all five of -our New England Hylocichlæ singing in its woods: the veery and the -hermit everywhere in the lower country, the wood thrush in the maple -forest before mentioned, the olive-back throughout the Notch and its -neighborhood, and the gray-cheek on Lafayette; a quintette hard to -match, I venture to think, anywhere on the footstool. And after them--I -do not say with them--were winter wrens, bobolinks, rose-breasted -grosbeaks, purple finches, solitary vireos, vesper sparrows, field -sparrows, white-throated sparrows, song sparrows, catbirds, robins, -orioles, tanagers, and a score or two beside. - -One other bright circumstance I am bound in honor to speak of,--the -abundance of swallows; a state of affairs greatly unlike anything to be -met with in my part of Massachusetts: cliff swallows and barn swallows -in crowds, and sand martins and tree swallows by no means uncommon. -But for the absence of black martins,--a famous colony of which the -tourist may see at Concord, while the train waits,--here would have -been a second quintette worthy to rank with the thrushes; the flight of -one set being as beautiful, not to say as musical, as the songs of the -other. As it was, the universal presence of these aerial birds was a -continual delight to any man with eyes to notice it. They glorified the -open valley as the thrushes glorified the woods. - -We shall never again see the like of this, I fear, in our prosier -Boston neighborhood. Within my time--within twenty years, indeed--barn -swallows summered freely on Beacon Hill, plastering their nests against -the walls of the State House and the Athenæum, and even under the busy -portico of the Tremont House. I have remembrance, too, of a pair that -dwelt, for one season at least, above the door of the old Ticknor -mansion, at the head of Park Street. Those days are gone. Now, alas, -even in the suburban districts, we may almost say that one swallow -makes a summer. An evil change it is, for which not even the warblings -of English sparrows will ever quite console me. Yet the present state -of things, the reoccupation of Boston by the British, if you please -to call it so, is not without its grain of compensation. It makes -me fonder of “old Francony.” Skeptic or man of faith, naturalist or -supernaturalist, who does not like to feel that there is somewhere a -“better country” than the one he lives in? - - - - -A DAY IN JUNE - -THE FORENOON - - “The air that floated by me seem’d to say, - ‘Write! thou wilt never have a better day,’ - And so I did.” - - KEATS. - - -All signs threatened a day of midsummer heat, though it was only the 2d -of June. Before breakfast, even, the news seemed to have got abroad; -so that there was something like a dearth of music under my windows, -where heretofore there had been almost a surfeit. The warbling vireo -in the poplar, which had teased my ear morning after morning, getting -shamelessly in the way of his betters, had for once fallen silent; -unless, indeed, he had sung his stint before I woke, or had gone -elsewhere to practice. The comparative stillness enabled me to hear -voices from the hillside across the meadow, while I turned over in -my mind a thought concerning the nature of those sounds--a class by -themselves, some of them by no means unmusical--which are particularly -enjoyable when borne to us from a distance: crow voices, the baying -of hounds, cowbell tinkles, and the like. The nasal, high-pitched, -penetrating call of the little Canadian nuthatch is one of the best -examples of what I mean. _Ank, ank_: the sounds issue from the depths -of trackless woods, miles and miles away as it seems, just reaching -us, without a breath to spare; dying upon the very tympanum, like a -spent runner who drops exhausted at the goal, touching it only with -his finger tips. Yet the ear is not fretted. It makes no attempt to -hear more. _Ank, ank_: that is the whole story, and we see the bird as -plainly as if he hung from a cone at the top of the next fir tree. - -“No tramping to-day,” said my friends from the cottage as we met at -table. They had been reading the thermometer, which is the modern -equivalent for observing the wind and regarding the clouds. But -my vacation, unlike theirs, was not an all-summer affair. It was -fast running out, and there were still many things to be seen and -done. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, with an umbrella and a -luncheon, I started for the Notch. I would reverse the usual route, -going by way of the railroad--reached by a woodland trail above -“Chase’s”--and returning by the highway. Of itself this is only a -forenoon’s jaunt, but I meant to piece it out by numerous waits--for -coolness and listening--and sundry by-excursions, especially by a -search for Selkirk’s violet and an hour or two on Bald Mountain. If the -black flies and the mosquitoes would let me choose my own gait, I would -risk the danger of sunstroke. - -As I come out upon the grassy plain, after the first bit of sharp -ascent, a pleasant breeze is stirring, and with the umbrella over -my head, and a halt as often as the shade of a tree, the sight of a -flower, or the sound of music invites me, I go on with great comfort. -Now I am detained by a close bed of dwarf cornel, every face looking -straight upward, the waxen white “flowers” inclosing each a bunch of -dark pin-points. Now a lovely clear-winged moth hovers over a dandelion -head; and a pleasing sight it is, to see his transparent wings beating -themselves into a haze about his brown body. And now, by way of -contrast, one of our tiny sky-blue butterflies rises from the ground -and with a pretty unsteadiness flits carelessly before me, twinkling -over the sand. - -A bluebird drops into the white birch under which I am standing, and -lets fall a few notes of his contralto warble. A delicious voice. For -purity and a certain affectionateness it would be hard to name its -superior. A vesper sparrow sings from the grass land; and from the -woods beyond a jay is screaming. His, by the bye, is another of the -voices that are bettered by distance, although, for my own part, I -like the ring of it, near or far. Now a song sparrow breaks out in his -breezy, characteristically abrupt manner. He is a bird with fine gifts -of cheeriness and versatility; but when he sets himself against the -vesper, as now, it is like prose against poetry, plain talk against -music. So it seems to me at this moment, I mean to say. At another -time, in another mood, I might tone down the comparison, though I could -never say less than that the vesper is my favorite. His gifts are -sweetness and perfection. - -So I cross the level fields to Chase’s, where I stand a few minutes -before the little front-yard flower-garden, always with many pretty -things in it. One of those natural gardeners, the good woman must be, -who have a knack of making plants blossom. And just beyond, in the -shelter of the first tree, I stop again to take off my hat, put down my -umbrella, and speak coaxingly to a suspicious pointer (being a friend -of all dogs except surly ones), which after much backing and filling -gets his cool nose into my palm. We are on excellent terms, I flatter -myself, but at that moment some notion strikes me and I take out my -notebook and pencil. Instantly he starts away and sets up a furious -bark, looking first at me, then toward the house, circling about me -all the while, at a rod’s distance, in a quiver of excitement. “Help! -help!” he cries. “Here’s a villain of some sort. I’ve never seen the -like. A spy at the very least.” And though he quiets down when I put up -the book, there is no more friendliness for this time. Man writing, as -Carlyle would have said, is a doubtful character. - -Another stage, to the edge of the woods, and I rest again, the breeze -encouraging me. A second bluebird is caroling. Every additional one is -cause for thankfulness. Imagine a place where bluebirds should be as -thick as English sparrows are in our American cities! Imagine heaven! -A crested flycatcher screams, an olive-side calls _pip, pip_, a robin -cackles, an oven-bird recites his piece with schoolboy emphasis, an -alder flycatcher _queeps_, and a vesper sparrow sings. And at the end, -as if for good measure, a Maryland yellow-throat adds his _witchery, -witchery_. The breeze comes to me over broad beds of hay-scented fern, -and at my feet are bunchberry blossoms and the white star-flower. At -this moment, nevertheless, the cooling, insect-dispersing wind is -better than all things else. Such is one effect of hot weather, setting -comfort above poetry. - -I leave the wind behind, and take my way into the wood, where there -is nothing in particular to delay me except an occasional windfall, -which must be clambered over or beaten about. Half an hour, more or -less, of lazy traveling, and I come out upon the railroad at the big -sugar-maple grove. This is one of the sights of the country in the -bright-leaf season, say the first week of October; something, I have -never concluded what, giving to its colors a most remarkable depth and -richness. Putting times together, I must have spent hours in admiring -it, now from different points on the Butter Hill round, now from Bald -Mountain. At present every leaf of it is freshly green, and somewhere -within it dwells a wood thrush, for whose golden voice I sit down in -the shade to listen. He is in no haste, and no more am I. Let him -take his time. Other birds also are a little under the weather, as it -appears; but the silence cannot last. A scarlet tanager’s voice is the -first to break it. High as the temperature is, he is still hoarse. -And so is the black-throated blue warbler that follows him. A pine -siskin passes overhead on some errand, announcing himself as he goes. -There is no need for him to speak twice. Then come three warblers,--a -Nashville, a magnolia, and a blue yellow-back; and after them a piece -of larger game, a smallish hawk. He breaks out of the dense wood behind -me, perches for half a minute in an open maple, where I can see that he -has prey of some kind in his talons, and then, taking wing, ascends in -circles into the sky, and so disappears. That is locomotion of a sort -to make a man and his umbrella envious. - -A rose-breasted grosbeak, invisible (but I can see him), is warbling -not far off. He has taken the tanager’s tune--which is the robin’s as -well--and smoothed it and smoothed it, and sweetened it and sweetened -it, till it is smoother than oil and sweeter than honey. I admire it -for what it is, a miracle of mellifluency; if you call it perfect, -I can only acquiesce; but I cannot say that it stirs or kindles me. -Perhaps I haven’t a sweet ear. And hark! the wood thrush gives voice: -only a few strains, but enough to show him still present. Now I am -free to trudge along up the railroad track, pondering as I go upon the -old question why railway sleepers are always too far apart for one step -and not far enough for two. At short intervals I pause at the sound -of a mourning warbler’s brief song, pretty in itself, and noticeable -for its trick of a rolled _r_. Some of the birds add a concluding -measure of quick notes, like _wit, wit, wit_. It is long since I have -seen so many at once. In truth, I have never seen so many except on -one occasion, on the side of Mount Washington. That was ten years -ago. One a year, on the average, shows itself to me during the spring -passage--none in autumn. Well I remember my first one. Twenty years -have elapsed since that late May morning, but I could go to the very -spot, I think, though I have not been near it for more than half that -time. A good thing it is that we can still enjoy the good things of -past years, or of what we call past years. - -And a good thing is a railroad, though the sleepers be spaced on -purpose for a foot-passenger’s discomfort. Without this one, over -which at this early date no trains are running, I should hardly be -traversing these miles of rough mountain country on a day of tropical -sultriness. The clear line of the track gives me not only passage and -a breeze, but an opening into the sky, and at least twice as many -bird sights and bird sounds as the unbroken forest would furnish.[10] -I drink at the section men’s well--an ice-cold spring inclosed in -a bottomless barrel--cross the brook which, gloriously alive and -beautiful, comes dashing over its boulders down the White-cross Ravine, -fifty feet below me as I guess, and stop in the burning on the other -side to listen for woodpeckers and brown creepers. The latter are -strangely rare hereabout, and this seems an ideal spot in which to -look for them. So I cannot help thinking as I see from how many of the -trunks--burned to death and left standing--the bark has warped in -long, loose flakes, as if to provide nesting sites for a whole colony -of creepers. But the birds are not here; or, if they are, they do -not mean that an inquisitive stranger shall know it. An olive-sided -flycatcher calls, rather far off, making me suspicious for an instant -of a red crossbill, and a white-throated sparrow whistles out of the -gulch below me; but I listen in vain for the quick _tseep_ which would -put an eighty-seventh name into my vacation catalogue. - -Here is the round-leaved violet, one pale-bright, shy blossom. How -pleased I am to see it! Hobble-bush and wild red cherry are still in -bloom. White Mountain dogwood, we might almost call the hobble-bush; -so well it fills the place, in flowering time, of _Cornus florida_ -in the Alleghanies. In the twilight of the woods, as in the darkness -of evening, no color shows so far as white; which, for aught I know, -may be one of the reasons why, relatively speaking, white flowers -are so much more common in the forest than in the open country. In -my eyes, nevertheless, the leaves of the hobble-bush--leaves and -leaf-buds--are, if anything, prettier than the blossoms. Such beauty -of shape, such expansiveness, such elegance of crimpling, and such -exceeding richness of hue, whether in youth or age! If the bush refuses -transplantation, as I have read that it does, I am glad of it. My -sympathies are with all things, plants, animals, and men, that insist -upon their native freedom, in their native country, with a touch, or -more than a touch, of native savagery. Civilization is well enough, -within limits; but why be in haste to have all the world a garden? It -will be some time yet, I hope, before every valley is exalted. - -With progress of this industriously indolent sort it is nearly noon -by the time I turn into the footpath that leads down to Echo Lake. -Here the air is full of toad voices; a chorus of long-drawn trills in -the shrillest of musical tones. If the creatures (the sandy shore and -its immediate shallows are thick with them) are attempting to set up -an echo, they meet with no success. At all events I hear no response, -though the fault may easily be in my hearing, insusceptible as it is -to vibrations above a certain pitch of fineness. What ethereal music -it would be, an echo of toad trills from the grand sounding-board -of Eagle Cliff! In the density of my ignorance I am surprised to -find such numbers of these humble, half-domesticated, garden-loving -batrachians congregated here in the wilderness. If the day were less -midsummery, and were not already mortgaged to other plans, I would go -down to Profile Lake to see whether the same thing is going on there. -I should have looked upon these lovely sheets of mountain water as -spawning-places for trout. But toads!--that seems another matter. If I -am surprised at their presence, however, they seem equally so at mine. -And who knows? They were here first. Perhaps I am the intruder. I wish -them no harm in any case. If black flies form any considerable part of -their diet, they could not multiply too rapidly, though every note of -every trill were good for a polliwog, and every polliwog should grow -into the portliest of toads. - - -THE AFTERNOON - -I spoke a little warmly, perhaps, at the end of the forenoon chapter. -Echo Lake, at the foot of it, is one of the places where I love best to -linger, and to-day it was more attractive even than usual; the air of -the clearest, the sun bright, the mountain woods all in young leaf, the -water shining. But the black flies, which had left me undisturbed on -the railroad, though I sat still by the half-hour, once I reached the -lake would allow me no rest. - -It was twelve days since my first visit. The snow was gone, and the -trailing arbutus had dropped its last blossoms; but both kinds of -shadbush, standing in the hollow where a snowbank had lain ten days -ago, were still in fresh bloom. Pink lady’s-slippers were common (more -buds than blossoms as yet), and the pink rhodora also; with goldthread, -star-flower, dwarf cornel, housonia, and the painted trillium. -Chokeberry bushes were topped with handsome clusters of round, purplish -buds. - -The brightest and prettiest thing here, however, was not a flower, -but a bird; a Blackburnian warbler fluttering along before me in the -low bushes--an extraordinary act of grace on the part of this haunter -of treetops--as if on purpose to show himself. He was worth showing. -His throat was like a jewel. A bay-breast, always deserving of notice, -was singing among the evergreens near by. So I believed, but the flies -were so hot after me that I made no attempt to assure myself. I was -fairly chased away from the waterside. One place after another I fled -to, seeking one where the breeze should rid me of my tormentors, till -at last, in desperation, I took to the piazza of the little shop--now -unoccupied--at which the summer tourist buys birch-bark souvenirs, -with ginger-beer, perhaps, and other potables. There I finished my -luncheon, still having a skirmish with the enemy’s scouts now and -then, but thankful to be out of the thick of the battle. The rippling -lake shone before me, a few swifts were shooting to and fro above it, -but for the time my enjoyment of all such things was gone. That half -hour of black-fly persecution had dissipated the happy mood in which -the forenoon had been passed, and there was no recovering it by force -of will. A military man would have said, perhaps, that I had lost my -_morale_. Something had happened to me, call it what you will. But -if one string was broken, my bow had another. Quiet meditation being -impossible, I was all the readier to go in search of Selkirk’s violet, -the possible finding of which was one of the motives that had brought -me into the mountains thus early. To look for flowers is not a question -of mood, but of patience. To look _at_ them, so as to feel their beauty -and meaning, is another business, not to be conducted successfully -while poisonous insects are fretting one’s temper to madness. - -If I went about this botanical errand doubtingly, let the reader -hold me excused. He has heard of a needle in a haystack. The case of -my violets was similar. The one man who had seen them was now dead. -Years before, he had pointed out to me casually (or like a dunce I had -_heard_ him casually) the place where he was accustomed to leave the -road in going after them--which was always long before my arrival. -This place I believed that I remembered within perhaps half a mile. My -only resource, therefore, was to plunge into the forest, practically -endless on its further side, and as well as I could, in an hour or -so, look the land over for that distance. Success would be a piece of -almost incredible luck, no doubt; but what then? I was here, the hour -was to spare, and the woods were worth a visit, violets or no violets. -So I plunged in, and, following the general course of the road, swept -the ground right and left with my eye, turning this way and that as -boulders and tangles impeded my steps, or as the sight of something -like violet leaves attracted me. - -Well, for good or ill, it is a short story. There were plenty of -violets, but all of the common white sort, and when I emerged into -the road again my hands were empty. “Small,” “rare,” says the Manual. -My failure was not ignominious,--or I would keep it to myself,--and I -count upon trying again another season. And one thing I _had_ found: -my peace of mind. Subjectively, as we say, my hunt had prospered. Now -I could climb Bald Mountain with good hope of an hour or two of serene -enjoyment at the summit. - -The climb is short, though the upper half of it is steep enough to -merit the name, and the “mountain” (it will pardon me the quotation -marks) is no more than a point of rocks, an outlying spur of Lafayette. -Its attractiveness is due not to its altitude, but to the exceptional -felicity of its situation; commanding the lake and the Notch, and the -broad Franconia Valley, together with a splendid panorama of broken -country and mountain forest; and over all, close at hand, the solemn, -bare peak of Lafayette. - -I took my time for the ascent (blessed be all-day jaunts, say I), -minding the mossy boulders, the fern-beds, and the trees (many of them -old friends of mine--it is more than twenty years since I began going -up and down here), and especially the violets. It was surprising, not -to say amusing, now that I had violets in my eye, how ubiquitous the -little _blanda_ had suddenly become. Almost it might be said that there -was nothing else in the whole forest. So true it is that seeing or -not seeing is mostly a matter of prepossession. As for the birds, this -was their hour of after-dinner silence. I recall only a golden-crowned -kinglet _zeeing_ among the low evergreens about the cone. He was the -first one of my whole vacation trip, and slipped at once into the -eighty-seventh place in my catalogue, the place I had tried so hard -to induce the brown creeper to take possession of two hours before. -Creeper or kinglet, it was all one to me, though the kinglet is -the handsomer of the two, and much the less prosaic in his dietary -methods. In fact, now that the subject suggests itself, the two birds -present a really striking contrast: one so preternaturally quick and -so continually in motion, the other so comparatively lethargic. Every -one to his trade. Let the creeper stick to his bark. Quick or slow, he -should still have been Number 88, and thrice welcome, if he would have -given me half an excuse for counting him. As things were, he kept out -of my reckoning to the end. - -“This is the best thing I have had yet.” So I said to myself as I -turned to look about me at the summit. It was only half past two, the -day was gloriously fair, the breeze not too strong, yet ample for -creature comforts,--coolness and freedom,--and the place all my own. -If I had missed Selkirk’s violet, I had found his solitude. The joists -of the little open summer-house were scrawled thickly with names and -initials, but the scribblers and carvers had gone with last year’s -birds. I might sing or shout, and there would be none to hear me. But I -did neither. I was glad to be still and look. - -There lay Echo Lake, shimmering in the sun. Beyond was the hotel, its -windows still boarded for winter, and on either side of it rose the -mountain walls. The White Cross still kept something of its shape on -Lafayette, the only snow left in sight, though almost the whole peak -had been white ten days before. The cross itself must be fast going. -With my glass I could see the water pouring from it in a flood. And how -plainly I could follow the trail up the rocky cone of the mountain! -Those were good days when I climbed it, lifting myself step by step -up that long, steep, boulder-covered slope. I should love to be there -now. I wonder what flowers are already in bloom. It must be too early -for the diapensia and the Greenland sandwort, I imagine. Yet I am not -sure. Mountain flowers are quick to answer when the sun speaks to them. -Thousands of years they have been learning to make the most of a brief -season. Plants of the same species bloom earlier here than in level -Massachusetts. After all, alpine plants, hurried and harried as they -are, true children of poverty, have perhaps the best of it. “Blessed -are ye poor” may have been spoken to them also. Hardy mountaineers, -blossoming in the very face of heaven, with no earthly admirers except -the butterflies. I remember the splendors of the Lapland azalea in -middle June, with rocks and snow for neighbors. So it will be this -year, for Wisdom never faileth. I look and look, till almost I am there -on the heights, my feet standing on a carpet of blooming willows and -birches, and the world, like another carpet, outspread below. - -But there is much else to delight me. Even here, so far below the -crest of Lafayette, I am above the world. Yonder is one of my pair of -deserted farms. Good hours I have had in them. Beyond is the Chase -clearing, and still beyond, over another tract of woods, are the -pasture lands along the road to “Mears’s.” Then comes the line of the -Bethlehem road, marked by a house at long intervals--and thankful am -I for the length of them. There I see _my_ house; one of several that -I have picked out for purchase, at one time and another, but have -never come to the point of paying for, still less of occupying. When -my friends and I have wandered irresponsibly about this country it has -pleased us to be like children, and play the old game of make-believe. -Some of the farmers would be astonished to know how many times their -houses have been sold over their heads, and they never the wiser. -Further away, a little to the right, I see the pretty farms--romantic -farms, I mean, attractive to outsiders--of which I have so often taken -my share of the crop from Mount Agassiz, at the base of which they -nestle. To the left of all this are the village of Franconia and the -group of Sugar Hill hotels, with the Landaff Valley (how green it -is!) below them in the middle distance. Nearer still is the Franconia -Valley, with the Tucker Brook alders, and far down toward Littleton -bright reaches of Gale River. - -All this fills me with exquisite pleasure. But longer than at anything -else I look at the mountain forest just below me. So soft and bright -this world of treetops all newly green! I have no thoughts about it; -there is nothing to say; but the feeling it gives me is like what I -imagine of heaven itself. I can only look and be happy. - -About me are stunted, faded spruces, with here and there among them a -balsam-fir, wonderfully vivid and fresh in the comparison; and after a -time I discover that the short upper branches of the spruces have put -forth new cones, soft to the touch as yet, and of a delicate, purplish -color, the tint varying greatly, whether from difference of age or for -other reasons I cannot presume to say. In this low wood, somewhere near -by, a blackpoll warbler, not long from South America, I suppose, is -lisping softly to himself. A myrtle warbler, less recently come, and -from a less distance, has taken possession of a dead treetop, hardly -higher than a man’s head, from which he makes an occasional sally after -a passing insect. Between whiles he sings. Once I heard a snowbird, as -I thought; but it was only the myrtle warbler when I came to look. An -oven-bird shoots into the air out of the forest below for a burst of -aerial afternoon music. I heard the preluding strain, and, glancing up, -caught him at once, the sunlight happening to strike him perfectly. All -the morning he has been speaking prose; now he is a poet; a division -of the day from which the rest of us might take a lesson. But for his -afternoon rôle he needs a name. “Oven-bird” goes somewhat heavily in a -lyric:-- - - “Hark! hark! the _oven-bird_ at heaven’s gate sings”-- - -you would hardly recognize that for Shakespeare. - -As I shift my position, trying one after another of the seats which -the rocks offer for my convenience, I notice that the three-toothed -five-finger--a mountain lover, if there ever was one--is in bud, and -the blueberry in blossom. The myrtle warbler sings by the hour, a soft, -dreamy trill, a sound of pure contentment; and two red-eyed vireos, one -here, one there, preach with equal persistency. They have taken the -same text, I think, and it might have been made for them: “Precept upon -precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a -little and there a little.” Right or wrong, the warbler’s lullaby is -more to my taste than the vireos’ exhortation. A magnolia warbler, out -of sight among the evergreens, is making an afternoon of it likewise. -His song is a mere nothing; hardly to be called a “line;” but if all -the people who have nothing extraordinary to say were to hold their -peace, what would ears be good for? The race might become deaf, as -races of fish have gone blind through living in caverns. - -These are exactly such birds as one might have expected to find here. -And the same may be said of a Swainson thrush and a pine siskin. A -black-billed cuckoo and a Maryland yellow-throat, on the other hand, -the yellow-throat especially, seem less in place. What can have brought -the latter to this dry, rocky hilltop is more than I can imagine. A big -black-and-yellow butterfly (Turnus) goes sailing high overhead, borne -on the wind. For so unsteady a steersman he is a bold mariner. A second -look at him, and he is out of sight. Common as he is, he is one of my -perennial admirations. The peak of Lafayette is no more a miracle. All -the flowers up there know him. - -Now it is time to go. I have been here an hour and a half, and am -determined to have no hurrying on the way homeward, over the old Notch -road. Let the day be all alike, a day of leisure and of dreams. A last -look about me, a few rods of picking my steep course downward over the -rocks at the very top, and I am in the woods. Here, “my distance and -horizon gone,” I please myself with looking at bits of the world’s -beauty; especially at sprays of young leaves, breaking a twig here and -a twig there to carry in my hand; a spray of budded mountain maple or -of yellow birch. Texture, color, shape, veining and folding--all is a -piece of Nature’s perfect work. No less beautiful--I stop again and -again before a bed of them--are the dainty branching beech-ferns. There -is no telling how pretty they are on their slender shining stems. And -all the way I am taking leave of the road. I may never see it again. -“Good-by, old friend,” I say; and the trees and the brook seem to -answer me, “Good-by.” - - - - -BERRY-TIME FELICITIES - - “A nice and subtle happiness, I see, - Thou to thyself proposest.” - - MILTON. - - -Once more I am in old Franconia, and in a new season. With all my -visits to the New Hampshire mountains, I have never seen them before -in August. I came on the last day of July,--a sweltering journey. That -night it rained a little, hardly enough to lay the dust, which is deep -in all these valley roads, and the next morning at breakfast time the -mercury marked fifty-seven degrees. All day it was cool, and at night -we sat before a fire of logs in the big chimney. The day was really a -wonder of clearness, as well as of pleasant autumnal temperature; an -exceptional mercy, calling for exceptional acknowledgment. - -After breakfast I took the Bethlehem road at the slowest pace. The last -time I had traveled it was in May. Then every tree had its bird, and -every bird a voice. Now it was August--the year no longer young, and -the birds no longer a choir. And when birds are neither in tune nor -in flocks, it is almost as if they were absent altogether. It seemed -to me, when I had walked a mile, that I had never seen Franconia so -deserted. - -An alder flycatcher was calling from a larch swamp; a white-throated -sparrow whistled now and then in the distance; and from still farther -away came the leisurely, widely spaced measures of a hermit thrush. -When he sings there is no great need of a chorus; the forest has found -a tongue; but I could have wished him nearer. A solitary vireo, close -at hand, regaled me with a sweet, low chatter, more musical twice over -than much that goes by the name of singing,--the solitary being one of -the comparatively few birds that do not know how to be unmusical,--and -a sapsucker, a noisy fellow gone silent, flew past my head and alighted -against a telegraph pole. - -Wild red cherries (_Prunus Pennsylvanica_) were ripe, or nearly so; -very bright and handsome on their long, slender stems, as I stood under -the tree and looked up. With the sun above them they became fairly -translucent, the shape of the stone showing. They were pretty small, -I thought, and would never take a prize at any horticultural fair; I -needed more than one in the mouth at once when I tested their quality; -but a robin, who had been doing the same thing, seemed reluctant to -finish, and surely robins are competent judges in matters of this -kind. My own want of appreciation was probably due to some pampered -coarseness of taste. - -An orchid, with one leaf and a spike of minute greenish flowers, -attracted notice, not for any showy attributes, but as a plant I did -not know. Adder’s-mouth, it proved to be; or, to give it all the -Grecian Latinity that belongs to it, _Microstylis ophioglossoides_. -How astonished it would be to hear that mouth-confounding name applied -to its modest little self; as much astonished, perhaps, as we should -be, who are not modest, though we may be greenish, if we heard some -of the more interesting titles that are applied to us, all in honest -vernacular, behind our backs. This year’s goldthread leaves gave me -more pleasure than most blossoms could have done; lustrous, elegantly -shaped, and in threes. Threes are prettier than fours, I said to -myself, as I looked at some four-leaved specimens of dwarf cornel -growing on the same bank. The comparison was hardly decisive, it is -true, since the cornus leaves lacked the goldthread’s shapeliness and -brilliancy; but I believe in the grace of the odd number. - -With trifles like these I was entertaining the time when a man on a -buckboard reined in his horse and invited me to ride. He was going down -the Gale River road a piece, he said, and as this was my course also I -thankfully accepted the lift. I would go farther than I had intended, -and would spend the forenoon in loitering back. My host had two or -three tin pails between his feet, and I was not surprised when he told -me that he was “going berrying.” What did surprise me was to find, -fifteen minutes later, when I got on my legs again, that with no such -conscious purpose, and with no tin pail, I had myself come out on the -same errand. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” - -The simple truth was that the raspberries would not take no for -an answer. If I passed one clump of bushes, another waylaid me. -“Raspberries, all ripe,” they said. It was not quite true: that would -have been a misfortune unspeakable; but the ripe ones were enough. -Softly they dropped into the fingers--softly in spite of their asperous -name--and sweetly, three or four together for goodness’ sake, they -melted upon the tongue. They were so many that a man could have his -pick, taking only those of a deep color (ten minutes of experience -would teach him the precise shade) and a worthy plumpness, passing a -bushel to select a gill. - -No raspberry should be pulled upon ever so little; it should fall -at the touch; and the teeth should have nothing to do with it, more -than with honey or cream. So I meditated, and so with all daintiness -I practiced, finishing my banquet again and again as a fresh cluster -beguiled me; for raspberry-eating, like woman’s work, is never done. -If the apple in Eden was as pleasant to the eyes and half as good -to eat, then I have no reflections to cast upon the mistress of the -garden. In fact, it seems to me not unlikely that the Edenic apple may -have been nothing more nor less than a Franconian raspberry. Small -wonder, say I, that one taste of its “sciential sap” “gave elocution to -the mute.” - -So I came up out of the Gale River woods into the bushy lane--a step or -two and a mouthful of berries--and thence into the level grassy field -by the grove of pines; a favorite place, with a world of mountains in -sight--Moosilauke, Kinsman, Cannon, Lafayette, Haystack, the Twins, and -the whole Mount Washington range. A pile of timbers, the bones of an -old barn, offered me a seat, and there I rested, facing the mountains, -while a company of merry barn swallows, loquacious as ever, went -skimming over the grass. Moving clouds dappled the mountain-sides with -shadows, the sun was good, a rare thing in August, and I was happy. - -This lasted for a matter of half an hour. Then a sound of wheels caused -me to turn my head. Yes, a pair of gray horses and a covered carriage, -with a white net protruding behind,--an entomological flag well known -to all Franconia dwellers in summer time, one of the institutions of -the valley. A hand was waved, and in another minute I was being carried -toward Bethlehem, all my pedestrian plans forgotten. I was becoming -that disreputable thing, an opportunist. But what then! As I remarked -just now, “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” In -vacation days the wisest of us may go with the wind. - -A pile of decaying logs by the roadside soon tempted the insect -collector to order a halt. She was brought up, as I have heard her say -regretfully, on the stern New England doctrine that time once past -never returns, and she is still true to her training. We stripped -the bark from log after log, but uncovered nothing worth while (such -beetles as the unprofessional assistant turned up being damned without -hesitation as “common”) except two little mouse-colored, red-bellied -snakes, each with two or three spots on the back of its head. One of -these pretty creatures the collector proceeded to mesmerize by rubbing -its crown gently with a stick. “See! he enjoys it,” she said; and if -thrusting out the tongue is a sign of enjoyment, no doubt he was in -something like an ecstasy. _Storeria occipitomaculata_, the books -call him. Short snakes, like small orchids, are well pieced out with -Latinity. I would not disturb the savor of raspberries by trying just -then to put my tongue round that specific designation, though it goes -trippingly enough with a little practice, and is plain enough in its -meaning. One did not need to be a scholar, or to look twice at the -snake, to see that its occiput was maculated. - -At the top of the hill--for we took the first turn to the -left--“creation widened,” and we had before us a magnificent prospect -westward, with many peaks of the Green Mountains beyond the valley. -Atmosphere so transparent as to-day’s was not made for nothing. Insects -and even raspberries were for the moment out of mind. There was glory -everywhere. We looked at it, but when we talked it was mostly of -trifles: the bindweed, the goldenrod, a passing butterfly, a sparrow. -Those who are really happy are often pleased to speak of matters -indifferent. Sometimes I think it is those who only _wish_ to be happy -who deal in superlatives and exclamations. - -One thing I was especially glad to see: the big pastures on the Wallace -Hill road full of hardhack bloom. Many times, in September and October, -I had stopped to gaze upon those acres on acres of brown spires; now -I beheld them pink. It was really a sight, a sea of color. If cattle -would eat _Spiræa tomentosa_, the fields would be as good as gold -mines. So I thought. I thought, too, what an ocean of “herb tea” might -be concocted from those millions and millions of leafy stalks. The idea -was too much for me; imagination was near to being drowned in a sea of -its own creating; and I was relieved when we left the rosy wilderness -behind us, and came to the famous clump of pear-leaved willow (_Salix -balsamifera_) near the edge of the wood. This I must get over the fence -and put my hand on, just for old times’ sake. A man may take it as -one of the less uncomfortable indications of increasing age when he -loves to do things simply because he used to do them, or has done them -in remembered company. In that respect I humor myself. If there is -anything good in the multiplying of years, by all means let me have it. -And so I wore the willow. - -On the way down the steep hill through the forest my friends pointed -out a maple tree which a pileated woodpecker had riddled at a -tremendous rate. The trunk contained the pupæ of wasps (they were not -strictly wasps, the entomologist was careful to explain, but were -always called so by “common people”), and no doubt it was these that -the woodpecker had been after. He had gone clean to the heart of the -trunk, now on this side, now on that. Chips by the shovelful covered -the ground. The big, red-crested fellow must love wasp pupæ almost as -well as some people love raspberries. Green leaves, a scanty covering, -were still on the tree, but its days were numbered. Who could have -foreseen that the stings of insects would bring such destruction? -Misfortunes never come singly. After the wasps the woodpecker. “Which -things are an allegory.” - - * * * * * - -One of my pleasures of the milder sort was to sit on the piazza before -breakfast (the lateness of the White Mountain breakfast hour being -one of a walking man’s _dis_pleasures) and watch the two morning -processions: one of tall milk-cans to and from the creamery,--an -institution which any country-born New Englander may be glad to think -of, for the comfort it has brought to New England farmers’ wives; the -other of boys, each with a tin pail, on their way to serve as caddies -at the new Profile House golf links. This latter procession I had never -seen till the present year. Half the boys of the village, from seven -or eight to fifteen or sixteen years old, seemed to have joined it; -some on bicycles, some in buggies, some on foot, none on horseback--a -striking omission in the eyes of any one who has ever lived or visited -at the South. - -Franconia boys, I have noticed, have a cheerful, businesslike, -independent way with them, neither bashful nor overbold, and it was -gratifying to see them so quick to improve a new and not unamusing -method of turning a penny. Work that has to do with a game is no more -than half work, though the game be played by somebody else; and some -of the boys, it was to be remarked, carried golf sticks of their own. -Trust a Yankee lad to combine business and pleasure. One such I heard -of, who was already planning how to invest his prospective capital. - -“Mamma,” he said, “can’t I spend part of my money for a fishing-rod?” - -“But, my dear,” said his mother, “you know it was agreed that the first -of it should go for clothes.” - -“Yes, mamma, but a boy can get along without clothes; and I’ve never -had any fishing-rod but a peeled stick.” - -It sounds like a fairy tale, but it is strictly true, that a famous -angler, just then disabled from practicing his art, overheard--or was -told of, I am not certain which--this heart-warming confession of -faith, and at once said, “My boy, I will give you a fishing-rod.” And -so he did, and a silk line with it. A boy who could get on without -clothes, but must have the wherewithal to go a-fishing, was a boy with -a sense of values, a philosopher in the bud, and merited encouragement. - -While I watched these industrial processions (“Gidap, Charlie! Gidap!” -says a cheery voice down the road), I listened to the few singers whose -morning music could still be counted upon: one or two song sparrows, -a field sparrow, an indigo-bird (as true a lover of August as of -feathery larch tops), a red-eyed vireo, and a distant hermit thrush. -Almost always a score or two of social barn swallows were near by, -dotting the telegraph wires, or, if the morning was cold, dropping in -bunches of twos and threes into the thick foliage of young elms. In -the trees, on the wires, or in the air, they were sure to keep up a -comfortable-sounding chorus of squeaky twitters. The barn swallow is -born a gossip; or perhaps we should say a talking sage--a Socrates, -if you will, or a Samuel Johnson. Now and then--too rarely--a vesper -sparrow sang a single strain, or a far-away white-throat gave voice -across the meadow; and once a passing humming-bird, a good singer with -his wings, stopped to probe the monk’s-hood blossoms in the garden -patch. The best that can be said of the matter is that for birds the -season was neither one thing nor another. Lovers of field ornithology -should come to the mountains earlier or later, leaving August to the -crowd of common tourists, who love nature, of course (who doesn’t -in these days?), but only in the general; who believe with Walt -Whitman--since it is not necessary to read a poet in order to share -his opinions--that “you must not know too much or be too precise or -scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain -free margin, and even vagueness--even ignorance, credulity--helping -your enjoyment of these things.” - -Such a credulous enjoyer of beauty I knew of, a few years ago, a summer -dweller at a mountain hotel closely shut in by the forest on all sides, -with no grass near it except a scanty plot of shaven lawn. Well, this -good lady, an honest appreciator of things wild, after the Whitman -manner, being in the company of a man known to be interested in matters -ornithological, broke out upon him,-- - -“Oh, Mr. ----, I do so enjoy the birds! I sit at my window and listen -to the meadow larks by the hour.” - -The gentleman was not adroit (I am not speaking of myself, let me say). -Perhaps he was more ornithologist than man of the world. Such a thing -may happen. At any rate he failed to command himself. - -“Meadow larks!” he answered, knowing there was no bird of that kind -within ten miles of the spot in question. - -“Well,” said his fair interlocutor, “they are either meadow larks or -song sparrows.” - -Such nature lovers, I say, may properly enough come to the mountains in -August. As for bird students, who, not being poets, are in no danger of -knowing “too much,” if they can come but once a year, let them by all -means choose a birdier season. - -For myself, though my present mood was rather Whitmanian than -scientific, I did devote one forenoon to what might be called an -ornithological errand: I went up to the worn-out fields at the end -of the Coal Hill road, to see whether by any chance a pair of horned -larks might be summering there, as I had heard of a pair’s doing -eight or ten years ago. Even this jaunt, however, ran into--I will -not say degenerated into--something like a berry-picking excursion. -Raspberries and blueberries so thick as to color the roadside, mile -after mile, are a delightful temptation to a natural man whose home is -in a closely settled district where every edible berry that turns red -(actual ripeness being out of the question) finds a small boy beside -the bush ready to pick it. I succumbed at once. In fact, I succumbed -too soon. The road was long, and the berries grew fatter and riper, or -so I thought, as I proceeded. It was a real tragedy. Does anything in -my reader’s experience tell him what I mean? If so, I am sure of his -sympathy. If not,--well, in that case he has my sympathy. Perhaps he -has once in his life seen a small boy who, at table, not suspecting -what was in store for him, ate so much of an ordinary dinner that out -of sheer physical necessity he was compelled to forego his favorite -dessert. Alas, and alas! A wasted appetite is like wasted time, a loss -irreparable. You may have another, no doubt, on another day, but never -the one you sated upon inferior fruit. - -Why should berries be so many, and a man’s digestive capacity so near -to nothing? The very bushes reproached me; like a jealous housewife who -finds her choicest dainties discarded on the plate. “We have piped unto -you and ye have not danced,” they seemed to mutter. I grew shame-faced -and looked the other way: at the splendid rosettes of red bunchberries; -at a bush full of red (another red) mountain-holly berries, red with a -most exquisite purplish bloom, the handsomest berries in the world, I -am ready to believe. Or I stopped to consider a cluster of varnished -baneberries, or a few modest, drooping, leaf-hidden jewels of the -twisted stalk. In truth, and in short, it was berry-time in Franconia. -What a strait a man would have been in if all kinds had been humanly -edible! - -With all the rest there was no passing the strangely blue bear-plums, -as Northern people call the fruit of clintonia. A strange blue, I -say. Left to myself I should never have found a word for it; but by -good luck I raised the question with a man who, as I now suppose, is -probably the only person in the world who could have told me what I -needed to know. He is an authority upon pottery and porcelain, and he -answered on the instant, though I cannot hope to quote him exactly, -that the color was that of the Ming dynasty. Every Chinese dynasty, I -think he said, has a color of its own for its pottery. When the founder -of the Ming dynasty was asked of what shade he would have the royal -dinner set, he replied: “Let it be that of the sky after rain.” And -so it was the color of Franconia bear-plums. Which strikes me as a -circumstance very much to the Ming dynasty’s credit. - -In a lonely stretch of the road, with a cattle pasture on one side and -a wood on the other, where tall grass in full flower stood between the -horse track and the wheel rut (this was a good berrying place, also, -had I been equal to my opportunity), I stood still to enjoy the music -of a hermit thrush, which happened to be at just the right distance. -A holy voice it was, singing a psalm, measure responding to measure -out of the same golden throat. I tried to fit words to it. “Oh,” it -began, but for the remainder of the strophe there were no syllables -in our heavy, consonant-weighted English tongue. It might be Spanish, -I thought--musical vowels with _l_’s and _d_’s holding them together. -I remembered the reputed saying of Charles V., that Spanish is the -language of the gods, and was ready to add, “and of hermit thrushes.” -But perhaps this was only a fancy. One thing was certain: the bird sang -in Spanish or in something better. If a man could eat raspberries as -long as he can listen to sweet sounds! - -Before the last house there was a brilliant show of poppies, and -beyond, at the limit of the clearing, an enormous beanfield. Poppies -and beans! Poetry and prose! Something to look at and something to -eat. Such is the texture of human life. For my part, I call it a -felicitous combination. Here, only a little while ago, the man of -the house--and of the beanfield--had come face to face with a most -handsome, long-antlered deer, which stamped at him till the two, man -and deer, were at close quarters, and then made off into the woods. -Somewhere here, also, the entomological collector had within a week or -two found a beetle of a kind that had never been “taken” before except -in Arizona! But though I beat the grass over from end to end, there was -no sign of horned larks. Ornithology was out of date, as was more and -more apparent. - -My homeward walk, with the cold wind cutting my face, took on the -complexion of a retreat. I could hardly walk fast enough, though -here and there a clump of virginal raspberry vines still detained me -briefly. It is amazing how frigid August can be when the mood takes -it. A farmer was mowing with his winter coat buttoned to the chin. I -looked at him with envy. For my own part I should have been glad of an -overcoat; and that afternoon, when I went out to drive, I wore one, and -a borrowed ulster over it. Such feats are pleasant to think of a few -days afterward, when the weather has changed its mind again, and the -mercury is once more reaching for the century mark. - - * * * * * - -In the course of my five days I walked twice over the road newly cut -through the mountain forest from the foot of Echo Lake to the golf -grounds: first upward, in an afternoon, returning to Franconia by the -old highway; then downward, in a forenoon, after reaching the lake -by way of the Butter Hill road and the sleepers, that is to say, the -railroad. Forenoon and afternoon the impression was the same,--silence, -as if the birds’ year were over, though everything was still green -and the season not so late but that tardy wood-sorrel blossoms -still showed, here and there one, among the clover-like leaves; old -favorites, that I had not seen for perhaps a dozen years. - -On the railroad--a place which I have always found literally alive -with song and wings, not only in May and June, but in September and -October--I walked for forty-five minutes, by the watch, without hearing -so much as a bird’s note. Almost the only living creature that I saw -(three berry-pickers and a dog excepted) was a red squirrel which sat -on end at the top of a tall stump, with his tail over his back, and -ate a raspberry, as if to show me how. “You think you are an epicure,” -he said; “and you stuff yourself so full in half an hour that you have -to fast for half a day afterward. What sort of epicurean philosophy -is that? Look at me.” And I looked. He held the berry--which must -have been something less than ripe--between his fore paws, just as -he would have held a nut, and after looking at me to make sure I was -paying attention twirled it round and round against his teeth till it -grew smaller and smaller before my eyes, and then was gone. “There!” -said the saucy chap, as he held up his empty fingers. The operation -had consumed a full minute, at the very least. At that rate, no doubt, -a man could swallow raspberries from morning till night. But what -good would it do him? He might as well be swallowing the wind. No -human mouth could tell raspberry juice from warm water, in doses so -infinitesimal. - -The sight, nevertheless, gave me a new conception of the pitch of -delicacy to which the sense of taste might be cultivated. It was -evident that our human faculty, comfortably as we get on with it in -the main, is only a coarse and bungling tool, never more than half -made, perhaps, or quite as likely blunted and spoiled by millenniums -of abuse. I could really have envied the chickadee, if such a feeling -had not seemed unworthy of a man’s dignity. Besides, a palate so -supersusceptible might prove an awkward possession, it occurred to me -on second thought, for one who must live as one of the “civilized,” and -take his chances with cooks. All things considered, I was better off, -perhaps, with the old equipment and the old method,--a duller taste and -larger mouthfuls. - -At the end of the forty-five minutes I came to the burning, a tract -of forest over which a fire had run some two years before. Here, in -this dead place, there was more of life; more sunshine, and therefore -more insects, and therefore more birds. Even here, however, there was -nothing to be called birdiness: a few olive-sided flycatchers and -wood pewees, both with musical whistles, one like a challenge, the -other an elegy; a family group of chestnut-sided warblers, parents -and young, conversing softly among themselves about the events of the -day, mostly gastronomic; a robin and a white-throated sparrow in song; -three or four chickadees, lisping and _deeing_; a siskin or two, a song -sparrow, and a red-eyed vireo. The whole tract was purple with willow -herb--which follows fire as surely as boys follow a fire engine--and -white with pearly immortelles. - -Once out of this open space--this forest cemetery, one might say, -though the dead were not buried, but stood upright like bleached -skeletons, with arms outstretched--I was again immersed in leafy -silence, which lasted till I approached the lake. Here I heard before -me the tweeting of sandpipers, and presently came in sight of two -solitaries (migrants already, though it was only the 4th of August), -each bobbing nervously upon its boulder a little off shore. The eye of -the ornithologist took them in: dark green legs; dark, slender bills; -bobbing, not teetering--_Totanus_, not _Actitis_. Then the eyes of -the man turned to rest upon that enchanting prospect: Eagle Cliff in -shadow, Profile Mountain in full sun, and the lake between them. The -spirit of all the hours I had ever spent here was communing with me. I -blessed the place and bade it good-by. “I will come again if I can,” I -said, “and many times; but if not, good-by.” I believe I am like the -birds; no matter how far south they may wander, when the winter is gone -they say one to another, “Let us go back to the north country, to the -place where we were so happy a year ago.” - -The last day of my visit, the only warm one, fell on Sunday; and on -Sunday, by all our Franconia traditions, I must make the round of -Landaff Valley. I had been into the valley once, to be sure, but that -did not matter; it was not on Sunday, and besides, I did not really go -“round the square,” as we are accustomed to say, with a fine disregard -of mathematical precision. - -After all, there is little to tell of, though there was plenty to see -and enjoy. The first thing was to get out of the village; away from the -churches and the academy, and beyond the last house (the last village -house, I mean), into the company of the river, the long green meadow -and the larch swamp,--a goodly fellowship. A swamp sparrow trilled me a -welcome at the very entrance to the valley, as he had done before, and -musical goldfinches accompanied me for the whole round, till I thought -the day should be named in their honor, Goldfinch Sunday. - -Pretty Atlantis butterflies were always in sight, as they had been even -in the coolest weather, with now and then an Atalanta and, more rarely, -a Cybele. I had looked for Aphrodite, also, being desirous to see these -three fritillaries (Cybele, Aphrodite, and Atlantis) together, till -the entomologist told me that we were out of its latitude. Commoner -even than Atlantis, perhaps, was the dusky wood-nymph, Alope (strange -notions the old Greeks must have had of the volatility of their -goddesses and heroines, to name so many of them after butterflies!), -she of the big yellow blotch on each fore wing; a wavering, timid -creature, always seeking to hide herself, and never holding a steady -course for so much as an inch--as if she were afflicted with the -shaking palsy. “Don’t look at me! Pray don’t look at me!” she is -forever saying as she dodges behind a leaf. Shyness is a grace--in -the feminine; but Alope is _too_ shy. If her complexion were fairer, -possibly she would be less retiring. - -From the first the warmth of the sun was sufficient to render shady -halts a luxury, and on the crossroad--“Gray Birch Road,” to quote my -own name for it--where a walker was somewhat shut away from the wind, -I began to spell “warm” with fewer letters. Here, too, the dust was -excessively deep, so that passing carriages--few, but too many--put a -foot-passenger under a cloud. Still I was glad to be there, turning -the old corners, seeing the old beauty, thinking the old thoughts. How -green Tucker Brook meadow looked, and how grandly Lafayette loomed into -the sky just beyond! - -Most peculiar is the feeling I have for that sharp crest; I know not -how to express it; a feeling of something like spiritual possession. -If I do not love it, at least I love the sight of it. Nay, I will -say what I mean: I love the mountain itself. I take pleasure in its -stones, and favor the dust thereof. The loftiest snow-covered peak in -the world would never carry my thoughts higher, or detain them longer. -It was good to see it once more from this point of special vantage. And -when I reached the corner of the Notch road and started homeward, how -refreshing was the breeze that met me! Coolness after heat, ease after -pain, these are near the acme of physical comfort. - -Best of all was a half-hour’s rest under a pine tree, facing a stretch -of green meadow, with low hills beyond it westward; a perfect picture, -perfectly “composed.” In the foreground, just across the way, stood -a thicket of chokecherry shrubs shining with fruit, and over them, -on one side, trailed a clematis vine full of creamy white blossoms. -Both cherry and clematis were common everywhere, often in each -other’s company, but I had seen none quite so gracefully disposed. No -gardener’s art could have managed the combination so well. - -Here I sat and dreamed. I was near home, with time to spare; the wind -was perfection, and the day also; I had walked far enough to make -a seat welcome, yet not so far as to bring on sluggish fatigue; and -everything in sight was pure beauty. Life will be sweet as long as it -has such half hours to offer us. Yet somehow, human nature having a -perverse trick of letting good suggest its opposite, I found myself, -all at once, - - “In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts - Bring sad thoughts to the mind.” - -I looked at the garden patch and the mowed field, and thought what -a strange world it is--ill-made, half-made, or unmade--in which -man has to live, or, in our pregnant every-day phrase, to get his -living; a world that goes whirling on its axis and revolving round -its heat-and-light-giving body,--like a top which a boy has set -spinning,--now roasted and parched, now drenched and sodden, now frozen -dead; a world wherein, as our good American stoic complained, a man -must burn a candle half the time in order to see to live; a world to -which its inhabitants are so poorly adapted that a day of comfortable -temperature is matter for surprise and thankfulness; a world which -cannot turn round but that men die of heat and by freezing, of thirst -and by drowning; a world where all things, appetite and passion, as -well as heat and cold, run continually to murderous extremes. A strange -world, surely, which men have agreed to justify and condemn in the same -breath as the work of supreme wisdom, ruined by original sin. Children -will have an explanation. The philosopher says: “My son, we must know -how to be ignorant.” - -So my thoughts ran away with me till the clematis vine and the cherry -bushes brought me back to myself. The present hour was good; the birds -and the plants were happy; and so was I, though for the moment I had -almost forgotten it. The mountain had its old inscrutable, beckoning, -admonishing, benignant look. The wise make no complaint. If the world -is not the best we could imagine, it is the best we have; and such -as it is, it is a pretty comfortable place in vacation time and fair -weather. Let me not be among the fools who waste a bright to-day in -forecasting dull to-morrows. - - - - -RED LEAF DAYS - - “Woods over woods in gay theatric pride.” - - GOLDSMITH. - - -White Mountain woods are generally at their brightest in the last few -days of September. This year I had but a week or so to stay among them, -and timed my visit accordingly, arriving on the 22d. As I drove over -the hills from Littleton to Franconia there were only scattered bits -of high color in sight--a single tree here and there, which for some -reason had hung out its autumnal flag in advance of its fellows. It -seemed almost impossible that all the world would be aglow within a -week; but I had no real misgivings. Seed time and harvest would not -fail. The leaves would ripen in their time. And so the event proved. -Day by day the change went visibly forward (visibly yet invisibly, as -the hands go round the face of a clock), till by the 30th the colors -were as brilliant as one could wish, though with less than the usual -proportion of yellow. - -The white birches, which should have supplied that hue, were -practically leafless. A small caterpillar (the larva of a tiny moth, -one of the _Microlepidoptera_) had eaten the greenness from every -white-birch leaf in the whole country round about. One side of Mount -Cleveland, for example, looked from a distance as if a fire had swept -over it. It was a real devastation; yet, to my surprise, as the -maple groves turned red the total effect was little, if at all, less -beautiful than in ordinary seasons. The leafless purplish patches gave -a certain indefinable openness to the woods, and the eye felt the -duller spaces as almost a relief. I could never have believed that -destruction so widespread and lamentable could work so little damage to -the appearance of the landscape. As the old Hebrew said, everything is -beautiful in its time. - -We were four at table, and in front of the evening fireplace, but -in footing it we were only two. Sometimes we walked side by side; -sometimes we were rods apart. When we felt like it we talked; then we -went on a piece in silence, as Christians should. Let me never have a -traveling companion who cannot now and then keep himself company. The -ideal man for such a rôle is one who is wiser than yourself, yet not -too wise, lest there be lack of reciprocity, and you find yourself no -better than a boy rusticating with a tutor. He should be even-tempered, -also, well furnished with philosophy, loving fair weather and good -living, but taking things as they come; and withal, while not unwilling -to intimate his own preference as to the day’s route and other matters, -he should be always ready to defer with all cheerfulness to his -partner’s wish. “The ideal man,” I say; but I am thinking of a real one. - -We have become well known in the valley, after many years; so that, -although we are almost the only walkers there, our ambulatory -eccentricity has mostly ceased to provoke comment. At all events, the -people no longer look upon us as men broken out of Bedlam. Time, we -may say, has established our innocence. If a recent comer expresses -concern as we go past, some older resident reassures him. “They are -harmless,” he says. “There used to be three of them. They pull weeds, -as you see; the older one has his hands full of them now. Yes, they are -branches of thorn-bushes. They always carry opera-glasses, too. We used -to think they were looking for land to buy. Old ----, up on the hill in -Lisbon, tried to sell them his farm at a fancy figure, but they didn’t -bite. I reckon they know a thing or two, for all their queer ways. One -of ’em knows how to write, anyhow; he is always taking out pencil and -paper. There! you see how he does. He sets down a word or two, and away -he goes again.” - -It is all true. We looked at plants, and sometimes gathered them. The -botanist had thorn-bushes on his mind, the genus _Cratægus_ being -a hard one, and, as I judged, newly under revision. I professed no -knowledge upon so recondite a subject, but was proud to serve the -cause of science by pointing out a bush here and there. One hot -afternoon, too, after a pretty long forenoon jaunt, I nearly walked my -legs off, as the strong old saying is, following my leader far up the -Landaff Valley (“down Easton way”) to visit a bush of which some one -had brought him word. It was an excellent specimen, the best we had -yet seen; but it was nothing new, and by no means so handsome or so -interesting as one found afterward by accident on our way to Bethlehem. -That was indeed a beauty, and its abundant fruit a miracle of color. - -Once I detected an aster which the botanist had passed by and yet, -upon a second look, thought worth taking home; it was probably -_Lindleyanus_, he said, and the event proved it; and at another time -my eye caught by the wayside a bunch of chokecherry shrubs hung -with yellow clusters. We were in a carriage at the time, four old -Franconians, and not one of us had ever seen such a thing here before. -Three of us had never seen such a thing anywhere; for my own part, -I was in a state of something like excitement; but the _Cratægus_ -collector, who knows American trees if anybody does, said: “Yes, the -yellow variety is growing in the Arnold Arboretum, and is mentioned -in the latest edition of Gray’s Manual.” Bushes have been found at -Dedham, Massachusetts, it appears. The maker of the Manual seems not to -have been aware of their having been noticed anywhere else; but since -my return home I have been informed that they are not uncommon in the -neighborhood of Montreal, where yellow chokecherries are “found with -the ordinary form in the markets”! - -That last statement is bewildering. Is there anything that somebody, -somewhere, does not find edible? I have heard of eaters of arsenic -and of slate pencils; but chokecherries for sale in a market! If the -reader’s mouth does not pucker at the words he must be wanting in -imagination. - -In Franconia even the birds seemed to refuse such a tongue-tying -diet. The shrubs loaded with fruit, some of it red (wine color), some -of it black,--the latter color predominating, I think,--stood along -the roadside mile upon mile. Sooner or later, I dare say, the birds -must have recourse to them; how else do the bushes get planted so -universally? But at the time of our visit there was a sufficiency of -better fare. Rum cherries were still plentiful, and birds, like boys -in an apple orchard, and like sensible people anywhere, take the best -first. - -It surprised me, while I was here some years ago, to discover how -fond woodpeckers of all kinds are of rum cherries. Even the pileated -could not keep away from the trees, but came close about the house to -frequent them. One unfortunate fellow, I regret to say, came once too -often. The sapsuckers, it was noticed, went about the business after -a method of their own. Each cherry was carried to the trunk of a tree -or to a telegraph pole, where it was wedged into a crevice, and eaten -with all the regular woodpeckerish attitudes and motions. Doubtless it -tasted better so. And the bird might well enough have said that he was -behaving no differently from human beings, who for the most part do not -swallow fruit under the branches, but take it indoors and feast upon it -at leisure, and with something like ceremony. The trunk of a tree is a -woodpecker’s table. - -And for all that, Franconia woodpeckers are not so conservative as not -to be able to take up with substantial improvements. They know a good -thing when they see it. These same sapsuckers, or one of them, was not -slow to discover that one of our crew, an entomological collector, had -set up here and there pieces of board besmeared with a mixture of rum -and sugar. And having made the discovery, he was not backward about -improving it. He went the round of the boards with as much regularity -as the moth collector himself, and with even greater frequency. And -no wonder. Here was a feast indeed; victuals and drink together; -insects preserved in rum. Happy bird! As the most famous of sentimental -travelers said on a very different occasion, “How I envied him his -feelings!” For there seems to be no doubt that sapsuckers love a liquid -sweetness, and take means of their own to secure it. - -On our present trip my walking mate and I stopped to examine a hemlock -trunk, the bark of which a woodpecker of some kind, almost certainly a -sapsucker, had riddled with holes till it looked like a nutmeg grater; -and the most noticeable thing about it was that the punctures--past -counting--were all on the south side of the tree, where the sap may be -presumed to run earliest and most freely. Why this particular tree was -chosen and the others left is a different question, to which I attempt -no answer, though I have little doubt that the maker of the holes could -have given one. To vary a half-true Bible text, “All the labor of a -woodpecker is for his mouth;” and labor so prolonged as that which -had been expended upon this hemlock was very unlikely to have been -laid out without a reason. Every judge of rum cherries knows that some -trees bear incomparably better fruit than others growing close beside -them; and why should a woodpecker, a specialist of specialists, be less -intelligent touching hemlock trees and the varying quality of their -juices? A creature who is beholden to nobody from the time he is three -weeks old is not to be looked down upon by beings who live, half of -them, in danger of starvation or the poorhouse. - -The end of summer is the top of the year with the birds. Their numbers -are then at the full. After that, for six months and more, the tide -ebbs. Winter and the long migratory journeys waste them like the -plagues of Egypt. Not more than half of all that start southward ever -live to come back again. - -Of this every bird-lover takes sorrowful account. It is part of his -autumnal feeling. If he sees a flock of bobolinks or of red-winged -blackbirds, he thinks of the Southern rice fields, where myriads of -both species--“rice-birds,” one as much as the other--will be shot -without mercy. A sky full of swallows calls up a picture of thousands -lying dead at once, in Florida or elsewhere, after a winter storm. A -September humming-bird leaves him wondering over its approaching flight -to Central America or to Cuba. Will the tiny thing ever accomplish that -amazing passage and find its way home again to New England? Perhaps it -will; but more likely not. - -For the present, nevertheless, the birds are all in high spirits, -warbling, twittering, feeding, chasing each other playfully about, as -if life were nothing but holiday. Little they know of the future. And -almost as little know we. Blessed ignorance! It gives us all, birds and -men alike, many a good hour. If my playmate of long ago had foreseen -that he was to die at twenty, he would never have been the happy boy -that I remember. Those few bright years he had, though he had no more. -So much was saved from the wreck. - -Thoughts of this kind come to me as I recall an exhilarating half-hour -of our recent stay in Franconia. It was on the first morning, -immediately after breakfast. We were barely out of the hotel yard -before we turned into a bit of larch and alder swamp by the shore of -Gale River. We could do nothing else. The air was full of chirps and -twitters, while the swaying, feathery tops of the larches were alive -with flocks of whispering waxwings, the greater part of them birds of -the present year, still wearing the stripes which in the case of so -many species are marks of juvenility. If individual animals still pass -through a development answering to that which the race as a whole has -undergone--if young animals, in other words, resemble their remote -ancestors--then the evolution of birds’ plumage must have gone pretty -steadily in the direction of plainness. Robins, we must believe, once -had spotted breasts, as most of their more immediate relatives have to -this day, and chipping sparrows and white-throats were streaked like -our present song sparrows and baywings. If the world lasts long enough -(who knows?) all birds may become monochromatic. Wing-bars and all -such convenient marks of distinction will have vanished. Then, surely, -amateurish ornithologists will have their hands full to name all the -birds without a gun. Then if, by any miraculous chance, a copy of some -nineteenth century manual of ornithology shall be discovered, and some -great linguist shall succeed in translating it, what a book of riddles -it will prove! Savants will form theories without number concerning it, -settling down, perhaps, after a thousand years of controversy, upon the -belief that the author of the ancient work was a man afflicted with -color blindness. If not, how came he to describe the scarlet tanager -as having black wings and tail, and the brown thrasher a streaked -breast? - -These are afterthoughts. At the moment we were busy, eyes and ears, -taking a census of the swamp. Besides the waxwings, which were much -the most numerous, as well as the most in sight--“tree-toppers,” -one of my word-making friends calls them--there were robins, song -sparrows, white-throats, field sparrows, goldfinches, myrtle warblers, -a Maryland yellow-throat, a black-throated green, a Nashville warbler, -a Philadelphia vireo, two or three solitary vireos, one or more -catbirds, as many olive-backed thrushes, a white-breasted nuthatch, and -a sapsucker. Others, in all likelihood, escaped us. - -In and out among the bushes we made our way, one calling to the other -softly at each new development. - -“What was that?” said I. “Wasn’t that a bobolink?” - -“It sounded like it,” answered the other listener. - -“But it can’t be. Hark!” - -The quick, musical drop of sound--a “stillicidious” note, my friend -called it--was heard again. No; it was not from the sky, as we had -thought at first, but from a thicket of alders just behind us. Then we -recognized it, and laughed at ourselves. It was the staccato whistle of -an olive-backed thrush, a sweet familiarity, over which I should have -supposed it impossible for either of us to be puzzled. - -The star of the flock, as some readers will not need to be told, -having marked the unexpected name in the foregoing list, was the -Philadelphia vireo. What a bright minute it is in a man’s vacation when -such a stranger suddenly hops upon a branch before his eyes! He feels -almost like quoting Keats. “Then felt I,” he might say, not with full -seriousness, perhaps,-- - - “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies - When a new planet swims into his ken.” - -Yet how unconcerned the bird seems! To him it is all one. He knows -nothing of his spectator’s emotions. Rarity? What is that? He has been -among birds of his own kind ever since he came out of the egg. Sedately -he moves from twig to twig, thinking only of another insect. This -minute is to him no better than any other. And the man’s nerves are -tingling with excitement. - -“You will hardly believe me,” said my companion, who had hastened -forward to look at the stranger, “but this is the second one I have -ever seen.” - -But why should I not believe him? It was only my third one. -Philadelphia vireos do not feed in every bush. Be it added, however, -that I saw another before the week was out. - -There were many more birds here now than I had found six or seven -weeks before; but there was much less music. In early August hermit -thrushes sang in sundry places and at all hours; now a faint _chuck_ -was the most that we heard from them, and that but once. And still our -September vacation was far from being a silent one. Song sparrows, -vesper sparrows, white-throats, goldfinches, robins, solitary vireos, -chickadees (whose whistle is among the sweetest of wild music, I being -judge), phœbes, and a catbird, all these sang more or less frequently, -and more or less well, though all except the goldfinches and the -chickadees were noticeably out of voice. Once a grouse drummed, and -once a flicker called _hi, hi_, just as in springtime; and every warm -day set the hylas peeping. Once, too, a ruby-crowned kinglet sang -for us with all freedom, and once a gold-crest. The latter’s song is -a very indifferent performance, hardly to be called musical in any -proper sense of the word; nothing but his ordinary _zee-zee-zee_, with -a hurried, jumbled, ineffective coda; yet it suggests, and indeed is -much like, a certain few notes of the ruby-crown’s universally admired -tune. The two songs are evidently of a common origin, though the -ruby-crown’s is so immeasurably superior that one of my friends seemed -almost offended with me, not long ago, when I asked him to notice the -resemblance between the two. None the less, the resemblance is real. -The homeliest man may bear a family likeness to his handsome brother, -though it may show itself only at times, and chance acquaintances may -easily be unaware of its existence. - -The breeziest voice of the week was a pileated woodpecker’s--a -flicker’s resonant _hi, hi_, in a fuller and clearer tone; and one of -the most welcome voices was that of an olive-backed thrush. We were -strolling past a roadside tangle of shrubbery when some unseen bird -close by us began to warble confusedly (I was going to say autumnally, -this kind of formless improvisation being so characteristic of the -autumnal season), in a barely audible voice. My first thought was of a -song sparrow; but that could hardly be, and I looked at my companion -to see what he would suggest. He was in doubt also. Then, all at once, -in the midst of the vocal jumble, our ears caught a familiar strain. -“Yes, yes,” said I, “a Swainson thrush,” and I fell to whistling the -tune softly for the benefit of the performer, whom I fancied, rightly -or wrongly, to be a youngster at his practice. Young or old, the echo -seemed not to put him out, and we stood still again to enjoy the -lesson; disconnected, unrelated notes, and then, of a sudden, the -regular Swainson measure. I had not heard it before since the May -migration. - -Every bird season has peculiarities of its own, in Franconia as -elsewhere. This fall, for example, there were no crossbills, even at -Lonesome Lake, where we have commonly found both species. White-crowned -sparrows were rare; perhaps we were a little too early for the main -flight. We saw one bird on September 23, and two on the 26th. Another -noticeable thing was a surprising scarcity of red-bellied nuthatches. -We spoke often of the great contrast in this respect between the -present season and that of three years ago. Then all the woods, both -here and at Moosilauke, fairly swarmed with these birds, till it seemed -as if all the Canadian nuthatches of North America were holding a White -Mountain congress. The air was full of their nasal calls. Now we could -travel all day without hearing so much as a syllable. The tide, for -some reason, had set in another direction, and Franconia was so much -the poorer. - - - - -AMERICAN SKYLARKS - - “Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, - To read what manner musicke that mote bee.” - - SPENSER. - - -On the second day after our arrival in Franconia[11] we were -following a dry, sandy stretch of valley road--on one of our favorite -rounds--when a bird flew across it, just before us, and dropped into -the barren, closely cropped cattle pasture on our left. Something -indefinable in its manner or appearance excited my suspicions, and I -stole up to the fence and looked over. The bird was a horned lark, the -first one that I had ever set eyes on in the nesting season. He seemed -to be very hungry, snapping up insects with the greatest avidity, and -was not in the least disturbed by our somewhat eager attentions. It -was plain at the first glance that he was of the Western variety,--a -prairie horned lark, in other words,--for even in the best of lights -the throat and sides of the head were white, or whitish, with no -perceptible tinge of yellow. - -The prairie lark is one of the birds that appear to be shifting or -extending their breeding range. It was first described as a sub-species -in 1884, and has since been found to be a summer resident of northern -Vermont and New Hampshire, and, in smaller numbers, of western -Massachusetts. It is not impossible, expansion being the order of the -day, that some of us may live long enough to see it take up its abode -within sight of the gilded State House dome. - -My own previous acquaintance with it had been confined to the sight of -a few migrants along the seashore in the autumn, although my companion -on the present trip had seen it once about a certain upland farm here -in Franconia. That was ten years ago, and we have again and again -sought it there since, without avail. - -Our bird of to-day interested me by displaying his “horns,”--curious -adornments which I had never been able to make out before, except in -pictures. They were not carried erect,--like an owl’s “ears,” let us -say,--but projected backwards, and with the head at a certain angle -showed with perfect distinctness. The bird would do nothing but eat, -and as our own dinner awaited us we continued our tramp. We would try -to see more of him and his mate at another time, we promised ourselves. - -First, however, we paid a visit (that very afternoon) to the upland -farm just now spoken of. “Mears’s,” we always call it. Perhaps the -larks would be there also. But we found no sign of them, and the -bachelor occupant of the house, who left his plough in the beanfield -to offer greeting to a pair of strangers, assured us that nothing -answering to our description had ever been seen there within his time; -an assertion that might mean little or much, of course, though he -seemed to be a man who had his eyes open. - -This happened on May 17. Six days afterward, in company with an -entomological collector, we were again in the dusty valley. I went -into the larch swamp in search of a Cape May warbler--found here -two years before--one of the very best of our Franconia birds; and -the entomologist stayed near by with her net and bottles, while the -second man kept on a mile farther up the valley to look for thorn-bush -specimens. So we drove the sciences abreast, as it were. My own hunt -was immediately rewarded, and when the botanist returned I thought -to stir his envy by announcing my good fortune; but he answered with -a smile that he too had seen something; he had seen the prairie lark -soaring and singing. “Well done!” said I; “now you may look for the -Cape May, and incidentally feed the mosquitoes, and the lady and I will -get into the carriage and take our turn with _Otocoris_.” So said, so -done. We drove to the spot, the driver stopped the horses opposite a -strip of ploughed land, and behold, there was the bird at that very -moment high in the air, hovering and singing. It was not much of a -song, I thought, though the entomologist, hearing partly with the eye, -no doubt, pronounced it beautiful. It was most interesting, whatever -might be said of its musical quality, and as we drove homeward my -companion and I agreed that we would take up our quarters for a day or -two at the nearest house, and study it more at our leisure. Possibly we -should happen upon a nest. - -In the forenoon of May 25, therefore, we found ourselves comfortably -settled in the very midst of a lark colony. The birds, of which there -were at least five (besides two pairs found half a mile farther up the -valley), were to be seen or heard at almost any minute; now in the road -before the house, now in the ploughed land close by it, now in one of -the cattle pastures, and now on the roofs of the buildings. One fellow -spent a great part of his time upon the ridgepole of the barn (a pretty -high structure), commonly standing not on the very angle or ridge, but -an inch or two below it, so that very often only his head and shoulders -would be visible. Once I saw one dusting himself in the rut of the -road. He went about the work with great thoroughness and unmistakable -enjoyment, cocking his head and rubbing first one cheek and then the -other into the sand. “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” I thought I -heard him saying. - -So far as we could judge from our two days’ observation, the birds were -most musical in the latter half of the afternoon, say from four o’clock -to six. Contrary to what we should have expected, we saw absolutely no -ascensions in the early morning or after sunset, although we did see -more than one at high noon. It is most likely, I think, that the birds -sing at all hours, as the spirit moves them, just as the nightingale -does, and the hermit thrush and the vesper sparrow. - -As for the quality and manner of the song, with all my listening and -studying I could never hit upon a word with which to characterize it. -The tone is dry, guttural, inexpressive; not exactly to be called -harsh, perhaps, but certainly not in any true sense of the word -musical. When we first heard it, in the distance (let the qualification -be noted), the same thought came to both of us,--a kingbird’s formless, -hurrying twitters. There is no rhythm, no melody, nothing to be -called phrasing or modulation,--a mere jumble of “splutterings and -chipperings.” Every note is by itself, having to my ear no relation -to anything before or after. The most striking and distinguishing -characteristic of it all is the manner in which it commonly hurries to -a conclusion--as if the clock were running down. “The hand has slipped -from the lever,” I more than once found myself saying. I was thinking -of a motorman who tightens his brake, and tightens it again, and then -all at once lets go his grip. At this point, this sudden acceleration -and conclusion, my companion and I always laughed. The humor of it -was irresistible. It stood in such ludicrous contrast with all that -had gone before,--so halting and labored; like a man who stammers and -stutters, and then, finding his tongue unexpectedly loosened, makes -all speed to finish. Sometimes--most frequently, perhaps--the strain -was very brief; but at other times a bird would sit on a stone, or a -fence-post, or a ridgepole, and chatter almost continuously by the -quarter-hour. Even then, however, this comical hurried phrase would -come in at more or less regular intervals. I imagined that the larks -looked upon it as the highest reach of their art and delivered it with -special satisfaction. If they did, I could not blame them; to us it was -by all odds the most interesting part of their very limited repertory. - -The most interesting part, I mean, of that which appealed to the ear; -for, as will readily be imagined, the ear’s part was really much the -smaller half of the performance. The wonder of it all was not the music -by itself (that was hardly better than an oddity, a thing of which one -might soon have enough), but the music combined with the manner of its -delivery, while the singer was climbing heavenward. For the bird is -a true skylark. Like his more famous cousin, he does not disdain the -humblest perch--a mere clod of earth answers his purpose; but his glory -is to sing at heaven’s gate. - -His method at such times was a surprise to me. He starts from the -ground silently, with no appearance of lyrical excitement, and his -flight at first is low, precisely as if he were going only to the next -field. Soon, however, he begins to mount, beating the air with quick -strokes and then shutting his wings against his sides and forcing -himself upward. “Diving upward,” was the word I found myself using. Up -he goes,--up, up, up, “higher still, and higher,”--till after a while -he breaks into voice. While singing he holds his wings motionless, -stiffly outstretched, and his tail widely spread, as if he were doing -his utmost to transform himself into a parachute--as no doubt he is. -Then, the brief, hurried strain delivered, he beats the air again -and makes another shoot heavenward. The whole display consists of an -alternation of rests accompanied by song (you can always see the music, -though it is often inaudible), and renewed upward pushes. - -In the course of his flight the bird covers a considerable field, since -as a matter of course he cannot ascend vertically. He rises, perhaps, -directly at your feet, but before he comes down, which may be in one -minute or in ten, he will have gone completely round you in a broad -circle; so that, to follow him continuously (sometimes no easy matter, -his altitude being so great and the light so dazzling), you will be -compelled almost to put your neck out of joint. In our own case, we -generally did not see him start, but were made aware of what was going -on by hearing the notes overhead. - -One grand flight I did see from beginning to end, and it was wonderful, -amazing, astounding. So I thought, at all events. There was no telling, -of course, what altitude the bird reached, but it might have been -miles, so far as the effect upon the beholder’s emotions was concerned. -It seemed as if the fellow never would be done. “Higher still, and -higher.” Again and again this line of Shelley came to my lips, as, -after every bar of music, the bird pushed nearer and nearer to the sky. -At last he came down; and this, my friend and I always agreed, was the -most exciting moment of all. He closed his wings and literally shot to -the ground head first, like an arrow. “Wonderful!” said I, “wonderful!” -And the other man said: “If I could do that I would never do anything -else.” - -Here my story might properly enough end. The nest of which we had -talked was not discovered. My own beating over of the fields came -to nothing, and my companion, as if unwilling to deprive me of a -possible honor, contented himself with telling me that I was looking -in the wrong place. Perhaps I was. It is easy to criticise. For a -minute, indeed, one of the farm-hands excited our hopes. He had found -a nest which might be the lark’s, he thought; it was on the ground, -at any rate; but his description of the eggs put an end to any such -possibility, and when he led us to the nest it turned out to be -occupied by a hermit thrush. Near it he showed us a grouse sitting upon -her eggs under a roadside fence. It was while repairing the fence that -he had made his discoveries. He had an eye for birds. “Those little -humming-birds,” he remarked, “_they_’re quite an animal.” And he was an -observer of human nature as well. “That fellow,” he said, speaking of a -young man who was perhaps rather good-natured than enterprising, “that -fellow don’t do enough to break the Sabbath.” - -And this suggests a bit of confession. We were sitting upon the piazza, -on Sunday afternoon, when a lark sang pretty far off. “Well,” said the -botanist, “he sings as well as a savanna sparrow, anyhow.” “A savanna -sparrow!” said I; and at the word we looked at each other. The same -thought had come to both of us. Several days before, in another part -of the township, we had heard in the distance--in a field inhabited -by savanna and vesper sparrows--an utterly strange set of bird-notes. -“What is that?” we both asked. The strain was repeated. “Oh, well,” -said I, “that must be the work of a crazy savanna. Birds are given to -such freaks, you know.” The grass was wet, we had a long forenoon’s -jaunt before us, and although my companion, as he said, “took no stock” -in my explanation, we passed on. Now it flashed upon us both that what -we had heard was the song of a prairie lark. “I believe it was,” said -the botanist. “I know it was,” said I; “I would wager anything upon -it.” And it was; for after returning to the hotel our first concern was -to go to the place--only half a mile away--and find the bird. And not -only so, but twenty-four hours later we saw one soaring in his most -ecstatic manner over another field, a mile or so beyond, beside the -same road. - -The present was a good season for horned larks in Franconia, we told -ourselves. Two years ago, at this same time of the year, I had gone -more than once past all these places. If the birds were here then I -overlooked them. The thing is not impossible, of course; there is no -limit to human dullness; but I prefer to think otherwise. A man, even -an amateur ornithologist, should believe himself innocent until he is -proved guilty. - - - - -A QUIET MORNING - - “Such was the bright world on the first seventh day.” - - HENRY VAUGHAN. - - -It is Sunday, May 26, the brightest, pleasantest, most comfortable of -forenoons. I am seated in the sun at the base of an ancient stone wall, -near the road that runs along the hillside above the Landaff Valley. -Behind me is a little farmhouse, long since gone to ruin. At my feet, -rather steeply inclined, is an old cattle pasture thickly strewn with -massive boulders. The prospect is one of those that I love best. In -the foreground, directly below, is the valley, freshly green, and, as -it looks from this height, as level as a floor. Alder rows mark the -winding course of the river, and on the farther side, close against the -forest, runs a road, though the eye, of itself, would hardly know it. - -Across the valley are the glorious newly clad woods, more beautiful -than words can begin to tell; and beyond them rise the mountains: -Moosilauke, far enough away to be blue; the shapely Kinsman range, at -whose long green slopes no man need tire of looking; rocky Lafayette, -directly in front of me; Haystack, with its leaning knob; the sombre -Twins and the more Alpine-looking Washington, Jefferson, and Adams. -Farther to the north are the low hills of Cleveland and Agassiz. A -magnificent horizon. Lafayette, Washington, Jefferson, and Adams are -still flecked with snow. And over the mountains is the sky, with high -white clouds, cirrus and cumulus. I look first at the mountains, then -at the valley, which is filled with sunlight as a cup is filled with -wine. The level foreground is the essential thing. Without it the -grandest of mountain prospects is never quite complete. - -Swallows circle about me continually, a phœbe calls at short intervals, -and less often I hear the sweet voice of a bluebird. Both phœbe and -bluebird are most delightfully plentiful in all this fair mountain -country. They are of my own mind: they like old farms within sight -of hills. Crows caw, a jay screams, and now and then the hurrying -drumbeats of a grouse come to my ears. Somewhere in the big sugar -grove behind me a great-crested flycatcher has been shouting almost -ever since I sat down. The “great screaming flycatcher,” he should be -called. His voice is more to the point than his crest. He loves the -sound of it. - -How radiantly beautiful the red maple groves are just now! I can see -two, one near, the other far off, both in varying shades of red, -yellow, and green. The earth wears them as ornaments, and is as proud -of them, I dare believe, as of the Parthenon. They are bright, but not -too bright. They speak of youth--and the eye hears them. A red-eye -preaches as if he knew the day of the week. What a gift of reiteration! -“Buy the truth,” he says. “Going, going!” But it is never gone. Down -the valley road goes an open carriage. In it are a man and a woman, the -woman with a parasol over her head. A song sparrow sings his little -tune, and the bluebird gives himself up to warbling. Few voices can -surpass his for sweetness and expressiveness. The grouse drums again -(let every bird be happy in his own way), a myrtle warbler trills (a -talker to himself), and a passing goldfinch drops a melodious measure. -All the chokecherry bushes are now in white. The day may be Whitsunday -for all that my unchurchly mind can say. Red cherries, which whitened -the world a few days ago, are fast following the shadbushes, which have -been out of flower for a week. Apple trees, too, have passed the height -of their splendor. The vernal procession moves like a man in haste. - -The sun grows warm. I will betake myself to the maple grove and sit in -the shadow; but first I notice in the grass by the wall an abundance -of tiny veronica flowers (speedwell)--white, streaked with purple, as -I perceive when I pluck one. Not a line but runs true. Everything is -beautiful in its time; the little speedwell no less than the valley and -the mountain. A red squirrel, far out on a tilting elm spray, is eating -his fill of the green fruit. Mother Earth takes care of her children. -She raises elm seeds as man raises wheat. And foolish man wonders -sometimes at what he thinks her waste of vital energy. - -I have found a seat upon a prostrate maple trunk, one of the fathers -of the grove, so huge of girth that it was almost a gymnastic feat to -climb into my position. Here I can see the valley and the mountains -only in parts, between the leafy intervening branches. Which way of -seeing is the better I will not seek to determine. Both are good--both -are better than either. A flycatcher near me is saying _chebec_ with -such emphasis that though I cannot see him I can imagine that he is -almost snapping his head off at every utterance. Much farther away is -a relative of his; we call him the olive-side. (I wonder what name the -birds have for us.) _Que-quee-o_, he whistles in the clearest of tones. -He is one of the good ones. And how well his voice “carries”--as if one -grove were speaking to another! - -About my feet are creamy white tiarella spires and pretty blue violets. -The air is full of the hum of insects, but they are all innocent. I -sit under my own beech and maple tree, with none to molest or make me -afraid. How many times I have heard something like that on a Sunday -forenoon! Year in and out, our dear old preacher could never get -through his “long prayer” without it. He would not be sorry to know -that I think of him now in this natural temple. - -An unseen Nashville warbler suddenly announces himself. “If you must -scribble,” he says, “my name is as good as anybody’s.” The little -flycatcher has not yet dislocated his neck. _Chebec, chebec_, he -vociferates. The swallows no longer come about me. They care not for -groves. They are for the open sky, the grass fields, and the sun; -but I hear them twittering overhead. If I could be a bird, I think I -would be a swallow. Hark! Yes, there is the syllabled whistle of a -white-breasted nuthatch. He must go into my vacation bird-list--No. 79, -_Sitta carolinensis_. If he would have shown himself sooner he should -have had a higher place. And now, to my surprise, I hear the rollicking -voice of a bobolink. The meadow below contains many of his happy kind, -and one of them has come up within hearing to brighten my page. - -All the time I have sat here I have been hoping to hear the hearty, -“full-throated” note of a yellow-throated vireo. This is the only place -in Franconia where I have ever heard it--two years ago this month. -But the bird seems not to be here now, and I must not stay longer. My -companion, who has gone higher up the hill to visit a thorn-bush, will -be expecting me on the bridge by the old grist-mill. - -Before I can get away, however, I add another name to my bird-list,--a -welcome name, the wood pewee’s. He has just arrived from the South, -I suppose. What a sweetly modulated, plaintive-sounding whistle! How -different from the bobolink’s “jest and youthful jollity!” And now the -crested breaks out again all at once, after a long silence. There is a -still stronger contrast. Four flycatchers are in voice together: the -crested, the olive-sided, the least, and the wood pewee. I have heard -them all within the space of a minute. As soon as I am in the valley -I shall hear the alder flycatcher, and when, braving the mosquitoes, I -venture into the tamarack swamp a little way to look at the Cape May -warbler (I know the very spot) I shall doubtless hear the yellow-belly. -These, with the kingbird and the phœbe, which are about all the farms, -make the full New Hampshire contingent. No doubt there are flies enough -for all of them. - -As I start to leave the grove, stepping over beds of round-leaved -violets and spring-beauties, both out of flower already, I start at the -sound of an unmusical note, which I do not immediately recognize, but -which in another instant I settle upon as a sapsucker’s. This is a bird -at whose absence my companion and I have frequently expressed surprise, -remembering how common we have found him in previous visits. I go in -pursuit at once, and presently come upon him. He is in extremely bright -plumage, his crown and his throat blood red. He goes down straightway -as No. 81. I am having a prosperous day. Three new names within half an -hour! Idling in a sugar orchard is good for a man’s bird-list as well -as for his soul. - -An oven-bird is declaiming, a blue yellow-back is practicing scales, -and a field sparrow is chanting. And even as I pencil their names a -nuthatch (the very one I have been hearing) flies to a maple trunk -and alights for a moment at the door of his nest. Without question he -passed a morsel to his brooding mate, though I was not quick enough to -see him. Yes, within a minute or two he is there again; but the sitting -bird does not appear at the entrance; her mate thrusts his bill into -the door instead. The happy pair! There is much family life of the best -sort in a wood like this. No doubt there are husbands and wives, so -called, in Franconia as well as in other places, who might profitably -heed the old injunction, “Behold the fowls of the air.” - - - - -IN THE LANDAFF VALLEY - - -The greatest ornithological novelty of our present visit to Franconia -was the prairie horned larks, whose lyrical raptures, falling “from -heaven or near it,” I have already done my best to describe. The rarest -bird (for there is a difference between novelty and rarity) was a Cape -May warbler; the most surprisingly spectacular was a duck. Let me speak -first of the warbler. - -Two years ago I found a Cape May settled in a certain spot in an -extensive tract of valley woods. The manner of the discovery--which -was purely accidental, the bird’s voice being so faint as to be -inaudible beyond the distance of a few rods--and the pains I took to -keep him under surveillance for the remainder of my stay, so as to make -practically sure of his intention to pass the summer here, have been -fully recounted in a previous chapter. The experience was one of those -which fill an enthusiast with such delight as he can never hope to -communicate, or even to make seem reasonable, except to men of his own -kind. - -We had never met with _Dendroica tigrina_ before anywhere about the -mountains, and I had no serious expectation of ever finding it here -a second time. Still “hope springs immortal;” “the thing that hath -been, it is that which shall be;” and one of my earliest concerns, -on arriving in Franconia again at the right season of the year, -was to revisit the well-remembered spot and listen for the equally -well-remembered sibilant notes. - -Our first call was on May 17. Perhaps we were ahead of time; at any -rate, we found nothing. On the 23d we passed the place again, and -heard, somewhat too far away, what I believed with something like -certainty to be the _zee-zee-zee-zee_ of the bird we were seeking; but -the dense underbrush was drenched with rain, we had other business in -hand, and we left the question unsettled. If the voice really was the -Cape May’s we should doubtless have another chance with him. So I told -my companion; and the result justified the prophecy, which was based -upon the bird’s behavior of two years before, when all his activities -seemed to be very narrowly confined--say within a radius of four or -five rods. - -We had hardly reached the place, two days afterward, before we heard -him singing close by us,--in the very clump of firs where he had so -many times shown himself,--and after a minute or two of patience we -had him under our opera-glasses. The sight gave me, I am not ashamed -to confess, a thrill of exquisite pleasure. It was something to think -of--the return of so rare a bird to so precise a spot. With all the -White Mountain region, not to say all of northern New England and of -British America, before him, he had come back from the tropics (for who -could doubt that he was indeed the bird of two years ago, or one of -that bird’s progeny?) to spend another summer in this particular bunch -of Franconia evergreens. He had kept them in mind, wherever he had -wandered, and, behold, here he was again, singing in their branches, as -if he had known that I should be coming hither to find him. - -The next day our course took us again past his quarters, and he was -still there, and still singing. I knew he would be. He could be -depended on. He was doing exactly as he had done two years before. You -had only to stand still in a certain place (I could almost find it in -the dark, I think), and you would hear his voice. He was as sure to be -there as the trees. - -That afternoon some ladies wished to see him, and my companion -volunteered his escort. Their experience was like our own; or rather -it was better than ours. The warbler was not only at home, but behaved -like the most courteous of hosts; coming into a peculiarly favorable -light, upon an uncommonly low perch, and showing himself off to his -visitors’ perfect satisfaction. It was bravely done. He knew what was -due to “the sex.” - -On the morning of the 27th I took my farewell of him. He had been there -for at least five days, and would doubtless stay for the season. May -joy stay with him. I think I have not betrayed his whereabouts too -nearly. If I have, and harm comes of it, may my curse follow the man -that shoots him. - -The “spectacular duck,” of which I have spoken, was one of several -(three or more) that seemed to be settled in the valley of the Landaff -River. Our first sight of them was on the 20th; two birds, flying low -and calling, but in so bewildering a light, and so quick in passing, -that we ventured no guess as to their identity. Three days later, on -the morning of the 23d, we had hardly turned into the valley before we -heard the same low, short-breathed, grunting, grating, croaking sounds, -and, glancing upward, saw three ducks steaming up the course of the -river. This time, as before, the sun was against us, but my companion, -luckier than I with his glass, saw distinctly that they carried a white -speculum or wing-spot. - -We were still discussing possibilities, supposing that the birds -themselves were clean gone, when suddenly (we could never tell how it -happened) we saw one of them--still on the wing--not far before us; and -even as we were looking at it, wondering where it had come from, it -flew toward the old grist-mill by the bridge and came to rest on the -top of the chimney! Here was queerness. We leveled our glasses upon the -creature and saw that it was plainly a merganser (sheldrake), with its -crest feathers projecting backward from the crown, and its wing well -marked with white. Its head, unless the light deceived me, was brown. -The main thing, however, for the time being, was none of these details, -but the spectacle of the bird itself, in so strange and sightly a -position. “It looks like the storks of Europe,” said my companion. -Certainly it looked like something other than an every-day American -duck, with its outstretched neck and its long, slender, rakish bill -showing in silhouette against the sky. - -Meanwhile, it had put its head partly out of sight in the top of the -chimney, as if it had a nest there and were feeding its young. Then of -a sudden it took wing, but in a minute or two was back again, to our -increasing wonderment; and again it dropped the end of its bill out -of sight below the level of the topmost bricks. Now, however, I could -see the mandibles in motion, as if it were eating. Probably it had -brought a fish up from the river. The chimney was simply its table. -Again, for no reason that was apparent to us, it flew away, and again, -after the briefest absence, it returned. A third time it vanished, and -this time for good. We kept on our way up the valley, talking of what -we had seen, but after every few rods I turned about to put my glass -upon the chimney. Evidently that was the duck’s favorite perch, I said; -we should find it there often. But whether my reasoning was faulty or -we were simply unfortunate, the fact is that we saw it there no more. -On the 25th, at a place two miles or more above this point, we saw -a duck of the same kind--at least it was uttering the same grating, -croaking sounds as it flew; and a resident of the neighborhood, whom -we questioned about the matter, told us that he had noticed such birds -(“ducks with white on their wings”) flying up and down the valley, -and had no doubt that they summered there. As to their fondness for -chimney-tops he knew nothing; nor do I know anything beyond the simple -facts as I have here set them down. But I am glad of the picture of -the bird that I have in my mind. - -Enthusiasm is a good painter; it is not afraid of high lights, and -it deals in fast colors. And to us old Franconians, enthusiasm seems -to be one of the institutions, one of the native growths, one of the -special delectabilities, if you please, of that delectable valley. The -valley of cinnamon roses, we have before now called it; the valley of -strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries; the valley of bobolinks and -swallows; but best of all, perhaps, it is the valley of hobbyists. Its -atmosphere is heady. We all feel it. The world is far away. Worldly -successes, yea, dollars and cents themselves, are nothing, and less -than nothing, and vanity. A new flower, a new bird, the hundred and -fiftieth spider, these are the things that count. We are like members -of a conventicle, or like the logs on the hearth. Our inward fires are -mutually communicative and sustaining. We laugh now and then, it may -be, at one another’s peculiarities. Each of us can see, at certain -moments, that the other is “a little off,” to use a “Francony” phrase; -not quite “all there,” perhaps; a kind of eighth dreamer, “moving -about in worlds not realized;” but at bottom we are sympathetic and -appreciative. We would not have each other different, unless, indeed, -it were a little younger. A grain of oddity is a good spice. If we are -not deeply interested in the newest discovery, at least we participate -in the exultation of the discoverer. - -“That’s a good fly,” said the entomologist. We were driving, three of -us, talking of something or nothing (we are never careful which it is), -when the happy dipteran blundered into the carriage, and into the very -lap of its admirer. Ten seconds more, and it was under the anæsthetic -spell of cyanide of potassium, which (so we are told) puts its victims -to sleep as painlessly, perhaps as blissfully, as chloroform. It was -an inspiration to see how instantly the lady recognized a “good” one -(it was one of a thousand, literally, for the day was summer-like), and -how readily, and with no waste of motions, she made it her own. I was -reminded of a story. - -A friend of mine, a truly devout woman, of New England birth, and -churchly withal (her books have all a savor of piety, though all -the world reads them), is also an enthusiastic and widely famous -entomological collector. One Sunday she had gone to church and was -on her knees reciting the service (or saying her prayers--I am not -sure that I remember her language verbatim), when she noticed on the -back of the pew immediately in front of her a diminutive moth of some -rare and desirable species. Instinctively her hand sought her pocket, -and somehow, without disturbing the congregation or even her nearest -fellow-worshiper (my helpless masculine mind cannot imagine how the -thing was done) she found it and took from it a “poison bottle,” always -in readiness for such emergencies. Still on her knees (whether her lips -still moved is another point that escapes positive recollection), she -removed the stopple, placed the mouth of the vial over the moth (which -had probably imagined itself safe in such ecclesiastical surroundings), -replaced the stopple above it, slipped the bottle back into her pocket, -and resumed (or kept on with) her prayers. All this had taken but a -minute. And who says that she had done anything wrong? Who hints at a -disagreement between science and faith? Nay, let us rather believe with -Coleridge-- - - “He prayeth best, who loveth best - All things, both great and small,”-- - -especially small church-going lepidoptera of the rarer sorts. - -With zealots like this about you, as I have intimated, you may safely -speak out. If you have seen an unexpected, long-expected warbler, or a -chimney-top duck, or a skyward soaring lark, you may talk of it without -fear, with no restraint upon your feelings or your phrases. Here things -are seen as they are; truth is cleared of false lights, and Wisdom is -justified of her children. Happy Franconia! - - “Has she not shown us all? - From the clear space of ether, to the small - Breath of new buds unfolding? From the meaning - Of Jove’s large eyebrow, to the tender greening - Of April meadows?” - -Happy Franconia! “Nested and quiet in a valley mild!” I think of her -June strawberries and her perennial enthusiasms, and I wish I were -there now. - - - - -A VISIT TO MOUNT AGASSIZ - - -Mount Agassiz is rather a hill than a mountain; there is no glory to -be won in climbing it, unless, perhaps, by very small children and -elderly ladies; but if a man is in search of a soul-filling prospect he -may climb higher and see less. The road to it, furthermore (I speak as -a Franconian), is one of those that pay the walker as he goes along. -Every rod of the five miles is worth traveling for its own sake, -especially on a bright and comfortable August morning such as the Fates -had this time sent me. It was eight o’clock when I set out, and with -a sandwich in my pocket I meant to be in no haste. If invitations to -linger by the way were as many and as pressing as I hoped for, a mile -and a quarter to the hour would be excellent speed. - -Red crossbills and pine siskins were calling in the larch trees near -the house as I left the piazza. The siskins have never been a frequent -sight with me in the summer season, and finding almost at once a flock -in the grass by the roadside, feeding upon seeds, as well as I could -make out, and delightfully fearless, I stopped for a few minutes to -look them over. Some of the number showed much more yellow than others, -but none of them could have been dressed more strictly in the fashion -if their costumes had come straight from Paris. Every bird was in -stripes. - -Both they and the crossbills are what writers upon such themes agree to -pronounce “erratic” and “irregular.” Of most birds it can be foretold -that they will be in certain places at certain times; their orbits are -known; but crossbills and siskins wander through space as the whim -takes them. If they have any schedule of times and seasons, men have -yet to discover it. When I come to Franconia, for example, I never -can tell whether or not I shall find them; a piece of ignorance to be -thankful for, like many another. The less knowledge, within limits, the -more surprise; and the more surprise--also within limits--the more -pleasure. At present I can hardly put my head out of the door without -hearing the wheezy calls of siskins and the importunate cackles of -crossbills. They are among the commonest and most voluble inhabitants -of the valley, and seem even commoner and more talkative than they -really are because they are so incessantly on the move. - -An alder flycatcher is calling as I go up the first hill (he, too, is -very common and very free with his voice, although, unlike siskin and -crossbill, he knows where he belongs, and is to be found there, and -nowhere else), and when I reach the plateau a sapsucker alights near -the foot of a telegraph post just before me; a bird in Quakerish drab, -with no trace of red upon either crown or throat. He (or she) is only -two or three months old, I suppose, like more than half of all the -birds now about us. Not far beyond, as the road runs into light woods, -with a swampy tract by a brook on the lower side, I hear a chickadee’s -voice and look up to see also two Canadian warblers, bits of pure -loveliness, the first ones of my present visit. I talk to them, and -one, his curiosity responsive to mine, comes near to listen. The -Canadian warbler, I have long noticed, has the bump of inquisitiveness -exceptionally well developed. - -So I go on--a few rods of progress and a few minutes’ halt. If there -are no birds to look at, there are always flowers, leaves, and berries: -goldthread leaves, the prettiest of the pretty--it is a joy to praise -them; and dwarf cornel berries, gorgeous rosettes; and long-stemmed -mountain-holly berries, of a color indescribable, fairly beyond -praising; and bear-plums, the deep-blue berries of the clintonia. And -while the eye feasts upon color the ear feasts upon music: a distant -brook babbling downhill among stones, and a breath of air whispering -in a thousand treetops; noises that are really a superior kind of -silence, speaking of deeper and better things than our human speech has -words for. Quietness, peace, contentment, we say; but such vocables, -good as they are, are but poor renderings of this natural chorus of -barely audible sounds. If you are still enough to hear it--inwardly -still enough--as may once in a long while happen, you feel things that -tongue of man never uttered. Life itself is less sweet. Now and then, -as I listen, I seem to hear a voice saying, “Blessed are the dead.” I -foretaste a something better than this separate, contracted, individual -state of being which we call life, and to which in ordinary moods we -cling so fondly. To drop back into the Universal, to lose life in order -to find it, this would be heaven; and for the moment, with this musical -woodsy silence in my ears, I am almost there. Yet it must be that I -express myself awkwardly, for I am never so much a lover of earth as at -such a moment. Life is good. I feel it so now. Fair are the white-birch -stems; fair are the gray-green poplars. This is my third day, and my -spirit is getting in tune. - -In the white-pine grove, where a few small birds are stirring -noiselessly among the upper branches, my attention is taken by clusters -of the ghostly, colorless plant which men know as the Indian pipe (its -real name, of necessity, is quite beyond human ken); the flowers, every -head bowed, just breaking through a bed of last year’s needles, while -a bumblebee, a capable economic botanist, visits them one by one. -Then, as I emerge from the grove on its sunny edge, I catch a sudden -pungent odor of balsam. It rises from the dry leaves, the sunlight -having somehow set it free. In the shade of the wood nothing of the -kind was perceptible. The fact strikes me curiously as one that I have -often been half consciously aware of, but now for the first time really -notice. On the instant I am taken far back. It is a July noon; I am -trudging homeward, and in my proud boyish hand is a basket of shining -black huckleberries carefully rounded over. The sense of smell is -naturally a sentimentalist; or perhaps the olfactory nerves have some -occult connection with the seat of memory. - -Here is one of my favorite spots: a level grassy field, with a ruined -house and barn behind me, between the road and a swampy patch, and in -front “all the mountains,” from Moosilauke to Adams. How many times I -have stopped here to admire them! I look at them now, and then fall to -watching the bluebirds and the barn swallows, that are here at home. -A Boston lady holds the legal title to the property (be it said in -her honor that she bought it to save the pine wood from destruction), -but the birds are its actual owners. Six bluebirds sit in a row on -the wire, while the swallows go twittering over the field. Once I -fancy that I hear the sharp call of a horned lark; but the note is not -repeated, and though I beat the grass over I discover nothing.[12] - -Beyond this level clearing the road winds to the left and begins its -climb to the height of land, whence it pitches down into Bethlehem -village. Every stage of the course is familiar. Here a pileated -woodpecker once came out of the woods and disported himself about the -trunk of an apple tree for my delectation--mine and a friend’s who -walked with me; here a hare sat quiet till I was close upon him, and -then scampered across the field with flying jumps; here is a backward -valley prospect that I never can have enough of; and here, just -over the wall, I once surprised myself by finding a bunch of yellow -lady’s-slippers. All this, and much else, I now live over again. So -advantageous is it to walk in one’s own steps. Many times as I have -come this way, I have never come in fairer weather. - -And what is this? It looks like a haying-bee. Eight horses and two -yokes of oxen, with several empty “hay-riggings” and as many buggies, -stand in confused order beside the road, and over the wall men are -mowing, spreading, and turning. It is some widow’s grass field, I -imagine, and her loyal neighbors have assembled to harvest the crop. -Human nature is not so bad, after all. So I am saying, with the -inexpensive charity natural to a sentimental traveler, when I find -myself near a group of younger men who are bantering one of their -number (I am behind a bushy screen), mixing their talk plentifully -with oaths; such a vulgar, stupid, witless repetition of sacred -names--without one saving touch of originality or picturesqueness--as -our honest, thoroughbred, rustic New Englander may challenge the world -to equal. These can be no workers for charity, I conclude; and when -I inquire of a man who overtakes me on the road (with an invitation -to ride), he says: “Oh, no, that is Mr. Blank’s farm, and those are -all his hired men. He is about the richest man in Bethlehem.” So my -pretty idyl vanishes in smoke; the smoke, I am tempted to say, of -burning brimstone. I have one consolation, such as it is: the men are -Bethlehemites, not Franconians, though I am not so certain that a -swearing match between the two towns would prove altogether one-sided. -It is nothing new, of course, that beautiful scenery does not always -refine those who live near it. It works to that end, within its -measure, I am bound to believe, for those who see it; but “there’s the -rub.” - -Whether men see it or not, the landscape takes no heed. There it -stretches as I turn to look, spaces of level green valley, with -mountains and hills round about--mountains and valleys each made -perfect by the other. I sit down once more in a favorable spot, -where every line of the picture falls true, and drink my fill of its -loveliness, while a hermit thrush out of the hill woods yonder blesses -my ears with music. I have Emerson’s wish--“health and a day.” - -At high noon, as I had planned, I came to the top of the mountain. The -observatory was full of chattering tourists, while three individuals -of the same genus stood on the rocks below, two men and a woman, the -men taking turns in the use--or abuse--of a horn, with which they -were trying to rouse the echo (a really good one, as I could testify) -from Mount Cleveland and the higher peaks beyond. Their attempts were -mostly failures. Either the breath wandered about uneasily inside the -brazen tube, moaning like a soul in pain--abortive mutterings, but no -“toot”--or, if a blast now and then came forth, it was of so low a -pitch that the mountains, whose vocal register, it appears, is rather -tenor than bass, were unable to return it effectively. “I can’t get -it high enough,” one of the men said. But they had large endowments -of perseverance--a virtue that runs often to pernicious excess--and -seemingly would never have given over their efforts, only that a -gentleman’s voice from the observatory finally called out, in a tone of -long-suffering politeness, “Won’t you please let up on that horn, just -for a little while?” The horn-blowers, not to be outdone in civility, -answered at once with a good-natured affirmative, and a heavenly -silence, a silence that might be felt, descended upon our ears. Neither -blower nor pleader will ever know how heartily he was thanked by a man -who lay upon the rocks a little distance below the summit, looking down -into the Franconia Valley. - -The scene is of exquisite beauty; beauty, moreover, of a kind that I -especially love; but for the first half-hour I looked without seeing. -It is always so with me in such places, I cannot tell why. Formerly -I laid my disability to the fact that the eye had first to satisfy -its natural curiosity concerning the details of a strange landscape; -its instinctive desire to orient itself by attention to topographical -particulars; and no doubt considerations of this nature may be -supposed to enter more or less into the problem. But Mount Agassiz -offered me nothing to be puzzled over; I felt no need of orientation -nor any stirrings of inquisitiveness. On my left was the Mount -Washington range, in front were Lafayette and Moosilauke, with the -valley intervening, and on the right, haze-covered to-day, rose peak -after peak of the Green Mountains. These things I knew beforehand. I -had not come to this Pisgah-top to study a lesson in geography, but to -enjoy the sight of my eyes. - -Still I must practice patience. Time--indispensable Time--is a servant -that cannot be hurried, nor can his share of any work be done by the -cleverest substitute. “Beautiful!” I said, and felt the word; but the -beauty did not come home to the spirit, filling and satisfying it. I -wonder at people who scramble to such a peak, stare about them for a -quarter of an hour, and run down again contented. Either the plate is -preternaturally sensitive, or the picture cannot have been taken. - -For myself, I have learned to wait; and so I did now. A few birds -flitted about the summit: two or three snowbirds, to whom the unusual -presence of a man was plainly a trouble (“Why can’t he stay up in the -observatory, like the rest of his kind?”); a myrtle warbler, chirping -softly as he passed; a white-throat, whistling now and then from -somewhere down the cliffs; an alder flycatcher, calling _quay-queer_ -(a surprising place this dry mountain-top seemed for a lover of swampy -thickets); an occasional barn swallow or chimney swift, shooting to and -fro under the sky; and once a sparrow hawk, welcome for his rarity, -sailing away from me down the valley, showing a rusty tail. - -By and by, seeing that the crowd had gone, I clambered up the -rocks, eating blueberries by the way, and mounted the stairs to the -observatory, where the keeper of the place was talking with two men (a -musician and a commercial traveler, if my practice as an “observer” -counted for anything), who had lingered to survey the panorama. The -conversation turned upon the usual topics, especially the Mount -Washington Railway. Four or five trains were descending the track, one -close behind the other, and it became a matter of absorbing interest -to make them out through the small telescope and a field glass. Why -be at the trouble to climb so high, at the cost of so much wind, -unless you do your best to take in whatever is visible? “Yes, I can -see one--two--three-- Oh, yes, there’s the fourth, just leaving the -summit.” So the talk ran on, with minor variations which may easily be -imagined. One important question related to the name of a certain small -sheet of water; another to a road that curved invitingly over a grassy -hilltop; another to the exact whereabouts of a rich man’s fine estate -(questions about rich men are always pertinent), the red roofs of which -could be found by searching for them. - -I took my full share of the discussion, but half an hour of it -sufficed, and I went back again to commune with myself upon the rocks. -The sunshine was warm, but the breeze tempered it till I found it good. -And the familiar scene was lovelier than ever, I began to think. Here -at my feet stood the little house, down upon which I had looked with -such rememberable pleasure on my first visit to Agassiz, I know not -how many years ago. Then a man was cutting wood before the door. Now -there is nobody to be seen; but the place must still be inhabited, for -I hear the tinkle of a cowbell somewhere in the woods, and a horse is -pasturing nearer by. Only three or four other houses are in sight--not -reckoning the big hotel and a few far-away roofs in Franconia--and -very inviting they look, neatly painted, with smooth, level fields -about them. It is my own elevation that levels the fields, I am quite -aware (when I stop to think of it), as it is distance that softens -the contours of the mountains, and the lapse of time that smooths the -rough places out of past years; but for the hour I take things as the -eye sees them. We come to these visionary altitudes, not to look at -realities but at pictures. Distance is a famous hand with the brush. -To omit details and to fill the canvas with atmosphere, these are the -secrets of his art. A comfortable thing it is to lie here at my ease -and yield myself to the great painter’s enchantments. - -My eye wanders over the landscape, but not uneasily; nay, it can hardly -be said to wander at all; it rests here and there, not trying to see, -but seeing. Now it is upon the road, spaces of which show at intervals, -while I imagine the rest--a sentimental journey; now upon a far-off -grassy clearing among woods (Mears’s or Chase’s), homely enough, and -lonely enough--and familiar enough--to fit the mood of the hour; now -upon the distant level reaches of the Landaff Valley. But the beauty -of the scene is not so much in this or that as in all together. I say -now, as I said twenty years ago, “This is the kind of prospect for -me:” a broken valley, fields and woods intermingled, with mountains -circumscribing it all; a splendid panorama seen from above, but not -from too far above; from a hill, that is to say, rather than from a -mountain. - -An hour of this luxury and I return to the tower, where the musician -and the keeper are still in conference. The keeper, especially, is a -man much after my own mind. He knows the people who live in the three -houses below us, and speaks of them racily, yet in a tone of brotherly -kindness. I call his attention to two women whom I have descried in -the nearest pasture, a bushy place, yellow with goldenrod and pointed -with young larches and firs. They wear men’s wide-brimmed straw hats (a -black-and-tan collie is with them), and one carries a broad tin dish, -which she holds in one hand, while she picks berries with the other. -Pretty awkward business, an old berry-picker thinks. - -Yes, the keeper of the tower says, they are Mrs. ---- and Miss ----; -one lives in the first house, the other in the second. Now they are -leaving the pasture, stopping once in a while to strip an uncommonly -inviting bush (so I interpret their movements), and we follow them -with our eyes. The older one, a portly body, walks halfway across -a broad field with her companion, seeing her so far homeward,--and -perhaps finishing a savory dish of gossip,--and then returns to her own -house, still accompanied by the dog. Scarcity of neighbors conduces to -neighborliness. - -The men who live in such houses, the keeper tells me, are very -wide-awake and well informed, reading their weekly newspaper with -thoroughness, and always ready for rational talk on current topics. -They are not rich, of course, in the down-country sense of the -word, and see very little money, subsisting mainly upon the produce -of the farm; a matter of twenty-five dollars a year may cover all -their expenditures; but they are better fed, and really live in more -comfort, than a great part of the folks who live in cities. I am glad -to believe it; and I like the man’s way of standing by his neighbors. -In fact, I think highly of him as a person of a good heart and no -small discrimination; and therefore I am all the gladder when, having -left the summit and stopped for a minute in the shade of a tree, -I overhear him say to the musician, “That old man enjoys himself; -he’s a _nice_ old man.” “Thank you,” say I, not aloud, but with deep -inward sincerity; “that’s one of the best compliments I’ve had for -many a day.” Blessings on this mountain air, that makes human speech -unintentionally audible. An old man that enjoys himself is pretty near -to my ideal of respectable senility. “Thank you,” I repeat; “that’s -praise, and faith, I’ll print it.” And so I will, pleasing myself, let -the ungentle reader--if I have one--think what he may. A good name is -more to brag of than a million of money. - -Yes, I am enjoying myself (why not?), and I loiter down the road with -a light heart (an old man should be used to going downhill), pausing -by the way to notice a little group--a family party, it is reasonable -to guess--of golden-crowned kinglets. One of them, the only one I see -fully, has a plain crown, showing neither black stripes nor central -orange patch. But for his unmistakable _zee-zee-zee_, which he is -considerate enough to utter while I am looking at him, he might be -taken for a ruby-crown. So the lover of beauty and the hobbyist descend -the hill together, keeping step like inseparable friends. And so may it -be to the end of the chapter. - - - - -INDEX - - - - -INDEX - - - Adder’s-mouth, 149. - - Arbutus, trailing, 57, 91, 133. - - Aster Lindleyanus, 5, 181. - - Azalea, Lapland, 140. - - - Beech-fern, 146. - - Blueberries, alpine, 24. - - Bluebird, 123, 125, 209, 210, 234. - - Bobolink, 97, 110, 117, 213. - - Butterflies, 10, 28, 36, 123, 145, 172. - - - Catbird, 29, 106, 117, 189, 191. - - Cedar-bird, 15, 187. - - Cherry, wild red, 79, 130, 148, 211; - rum, 183. - - Chickadee, black-capped, 13, 15, 16, 22, 72, 83, 94, 170, 191; - Hudsonian, 15, 53. - - Chokeberry, 133. - - Chokecherry, yellow, 181. - - Cicada, 54. - - Clintonia, 164, 231. - - Coltsfoot, 67. - - Cornel, dwarf, 57, 122, 133, 150, 163, 231. - - Creeper, brown, 129, 138. - - Crossbill, red, 19, 194, 228; - white-winged, 19. - - Crow, 11, 97, 210. - - Cuckoo, black-billed, 145. - - - Finch, pine, 126, 144, 170, 228; - purple, 117. - - Fleas, 32. - - Flowers, alpine, 140. - - Flycatcher, alder, 105, 125, 148, 214, 230, 240; - crested, 99, 125, 210, 214; - least, 212, 213, 214; - olive-sided, 101, 105, 130, 169, 212, 214; - yellow-bellied, 101, 215. - - Fox, 58. - - - Goldfinch, 72, 172, 189, 191, 211. - - Goldthread, 57, 83, 133, 150, 231. - - Grosbeak, rose-breasted, 86, 117, 127. - - Grouse, 27, 101, 192, 205, 210, 211. - - - Hardhack, 155. - - Hawk, sparrow, 240. - - Hobble-bush, 13, 130. - - Houstonia, 133. - - Humming-bird, 160, 205. - - Hyla, 192. - - - Indigo-bird, 159. - - - Kinglet, golden-crowned, 138, 192, 246; - ruby-crowned, 29, 66, 72, 192. - - Kingfisher, 16. - - - Lady’s-slipper, pink, 108, 133; - yellow, 111, 235. - - Lark, meadow, 115; - prairie horned, 162, 166, 195, 217, 234. - - Lonesome Lake, 11. - - - Martin, purple, 117. - - Maryland yellow-throat, 72, 125, 145, 189. - - Merganser, 221. - - Mountain ash, 17. - - Mountain holly, 163, 231. - - - Nuthatch, red-breasted, 17, 121, 194; - white-breasted, 189, 213, 216. - - - Oriole, 117. - - Oven-bird, 125, 143, 216. - - Owl, barred, 22. - - - Phœbe, 191, 209. - - - Raspberry, 151, 162. - - Rhodora, 85, 133. - - Robin, 13, 22, 74, 117, 170, 189, 191. - - - Salix balsamifera, 6, 41, 85, 155. - - Sandpiper, solitary, 89, 115, 170. - - Sandwort, Greenland, 25. - - Sapsucker, 68, 148, 183, 184, 189, 215, 230. - - Shadbush, 80, 83, 91, 133, 211. - - Shadbush, few-flowered, 91, 133. - - Siskin, pine, 126, 144, 170, 228. - - Snowbird, 14, 15, 63, 240. - - Sparrow, chipping, 77; - English, 118; - field, 77, 116, 117, 159, 189; - fox, 57; - Lincoln’s, 68, 74, 77; - savanna, 78; - song, 72, 74, 77, 117, 123, 159, 170, 189, 191, 210; - swamp, 74, 172; - vesper, 8, 44, 51, 116, 117, 123, 160, 191; - white-crowned, 74, 77, 114, 194; - white-throated, 13, 15, 25, 57, 66, 74, 83, 93, 130, 148, 160, 170, - 189, 191. - - Spiders, 31. - - Spring-beauty, 88, 89. - - Swallow, bank, 117; - barn, 97, 117, 118, 152, 159, 234, 240; - cliff, 117; - tree, 117. - - Swift, 134, 240. - - - Tanager, 72, 101, 117, 126. - - Thorn-bush, 180. - - Thrush, gray-cheeked, 117; - hermit, 14, 21, 29, 30, 39, 80, 113, 115, 117, 148, 159, 165, 191, - 237; - olive-backed (Swainson’s), 14, 21, 22, 101, 117, 144, 189, 193; - water, 105; - Wilson’s (veery), 101, 110, 115, 117; - wood, 112, 117, 126, 127. - - Toad, 131. - - Trillium, painted, 83, 133. - - - Violet, dog-tooth, 89; - round-leaved, 88, 89, 130; - Selkirk’s, 122, 135. - - Vireo, Philadelphia, 189, 190; - red-eyed, 18, 72, 116, 144, 159, 170, 210; - solitary, 8, 66, 68, 72, 117, 148, 189, 191; - warbling, 120; - yellow-throated, 115, 214. - - - Warbler, bay-breasted, 72, 73, 87, 94; - Blackburnian, 86, 87, 94, 135; - black-and-white, 104; - blackpoll, 72, 142; - black-throated blue, 126; - black-throated green, 72, 189; - blue yellow-backed, 127, 216; - Canada, 101, 230; - Cape May, 94, 102, 103, 106, 107, 111, 198, 217; - chestnut-sided, 72, 73, 170; - magnolia, 101, 127, 144; - mourning, 112, 128; - myrtle, 68, 72, 143, 144, 189, 211, 240; - Nashville, 127, 189, 213; - Tennessee, 41, 92, 101, 102, 103, 105; - Wilson’s black-cap, 114. - - Woodchuck, 61, 86, 96. - - Wood pewee, 169, 214. - - Woodpecker, arctic three-toed, 14; - downy, 68; - golden-winged, 16, 68, 72; - hairy, 41; - pileated, 45, 99, 156, 183, 193, 234. - - Wood-sorrel, 167. - - Wren, winter, 10, 57, 72, 90, 117. - - - The Riverside Press - _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. - Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The species was not new. A Maine collector had anticipated her, I -believe. Whether _his_ name was given to the flea I did not learn or -have forgotten. - -[2] The _Atlantic Monthly_. - -[3] “I named it Tom’s Finch,” says Audubon, “in honor of our friend -Lincoln, who was a great favorite among us.” - -[4] But the brightness of red-maple groves at this season is mostly not -in the leaves, but in the fruit. - -[5] Yes, he has even been seen (and “taken”), so I am told, at the -summit of Mount Washington. - -[6] No, the line is Coleridge’s:-- - - “the merry nightingale - That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With - fast thick warble his delicious notes.” - -[7] So I was relieved to find all the Franconia white-throated sparrows -introducing their sets of triplets with two--not three--longer single -notes. That was how I had always whistled the tune; and I had been -astonished and grieved to see it printed in musical notation by Mr. -Cheney, and again by Mr. Chapman, with an introductory measure of three -notes: as if it were to go, “Old Sam, Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody,” -instead of, as I remembered it, and as reason dictated, “Old Sam -Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.” I am not intimating that Mr. Cheney and -Mr. Chapman are wrong, but that my own recollection was right,--a very -different matter, as my present experience with Tennessee warblers was -sufficient to show. - -[8] I made the following list of fifty odd species heard and seen -either from my windows or from the piazza: bluebird, robin, veery, -hermit thrush, olive-backed thrush, chickadee, Canadian nuthatch, -catbird, oven-bird, water thrush, chestnut-sided warbler, myrtle -warbler, redstart, Nashville warbler, blue yellow-backed warbler, -Maryland yellow-throat, warbling vireo, red-eyed vireo, cedar-bird, -barn swallow, cliff swallow, sand swallow, tree swallow, goldfinch, -purple finch, pine finch, red crossbill, indigo-bird, snowbird, -song sparrow, field sparrow, chipping sparrow, vesper sparrow, -white-throated sparrow, Baltimore oriole, bobolink, red-winged -blackbird, crow, blue jay, kingbird, phœbe, least flycatcher, -olive-sided flycatcher, alder flycatcher, great-crested flycatcher, -wood pewee, humming-bird, chimney swift, whip-poor-will, flicker, -kingfisher, black-billed cuckoo. - -[9] _The Auk_, vol. v. p. 151. - -[10] I was once walking over these same miles of sleepers with a -bird-loving man, when he recalled a reminiscence of his boyhood. One -of his teachers was remarking upon the need of seeking things in their -appropriate places. “Now if you wanted to see birds,” he said, by way -of illustration, “you wouldn’t go to a railroad track.” “Which is the -very place we do go to,” my companion added. - -[11] This and the two succeeding chapters are records of a vacation -visit in May, 1901. - -[12] Four days afterward (August 9) I found larks of the present season -in the Landaff Valley, where I had watched their parents with so much -pleasure in May, as I have described in a previous chapter. These -August birds were feeding upon oats in the road, like so many English -sparrows. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOOTING IT IN FRANCONIA *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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