INDIVIDUALITY IN BIRDS. 221 



seem to deny his ever having been within their 

 dominion. Why does he shun me, when I have 

 never harmed him, and would not have harmed 

 him had he come to me ? 



If I steal ever so softly to the mossy bank of 

 the meadow brook, and peep through the ferns 

 into the deep pool overhung by the thick turf, 

 the wary trout which lies poised in the cool cur- 

 rent, with filmy fins pulsating, will see me, and 

 seeing, strain every muscle of his marvelous 

 form to hurl himself from me into some hidden 

 grotto far down the stream. If a butterfly, 

 opening and shutting its yellow wings on the 

 milkweed flower, sees my shadow creeping to- 

 wards it, the golden wings will move with vehe- 

 ment power, and, high above me in the August 

 sunlight the distrustful insect will linger, bid- 

 ding me by its restless unhappiness depart from 

 its milkweed. 



By night, as by day, the life of the forest, the 

 field, and the water shuns me. The bat, which 

 flits back and forth with crazy flight above the 

 lake, avoids me ; the hare, leaping lazily through 

 the grass where the moonlight sparkles in the 

 dew, bounds from me, panic-stricken ; the owl, 

 with silent wing, floats from me down the forest 

 aisles, and hoots no more. What have I done 

 that creation should spurn me as a leper, and 

 that all which is most beautiful in animal life 



