224 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



than there are hours in the day, and close watch 

 for an hour of any one bird may yield a fact 

 which no naturalist has ever recorded. 



I have a friend who lives alone, summer and 

 winter, in a tiny hut amid the woods. The doc- 

 tors told him that he must die, so he escaped 

 from them to nature, made his peace with her, 

 and regained his health. To the wild creatures 

 of the pasture, the oak woods, and the swamps 

 he is no longer a man, but a faun ; he is one of 

 their own kind, shy, alert, silent. They, having 

 learned to trust him, have come a little nearer 

 to men. I once went to his hut when he was 

 absent, and stretched myself in the sunlight 

 by his tiny doorstep. Presently two chickadees 

 came to a box of birdseed swinging from the 

 pine limb overhead, and fed there, cracking the 

 seeds one by one with their bills. Then, from 

 the swamp, a pair of catbirds appeared, and fed 

 upon crumbs scattered over the ground just at 

 my feet ; a chipmunk ran back and forth past 

 them, coming almost within reach of my hand ; 

 soon after a song sparrow drove away the cat- 

 birds, and then sang a little sotto voce song to 

 me before helping itself to the crumbs. When 

 my friend returned, he told me the story of this 

 song sparrow ; how he had saved its life, and 

 been rewarded by three years of gratitude, confi- 

 dence, and affection on the part of the brave little 



