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IN THE HEMLOCKS 



"jV /TOST people receive with incredulity a state- 

 -^^-^ inent of the number of birds that annually 

 visit our climate. Very few even are aware of half 

 the number that spend the summer in their own 

 immediate vicinity. We little suspect, when we 

 walk in the woods, whose privacy we are intruding 

 upon, — what rare and elegant visitants from Mex- 

 ico, from Central and South America, and from the 

 islands of the sea, are holding their reunions in the 

 branches over our heads, or pursuing their pleasure 

 on the ground before us. 



I recall the altogether admirable and shining 

 family which Thoreau dreamed he saw in the upper 

 chambers of Spaulding's woods, which Spaulding 

 did not know lived there, and which were not put 

 out when Spaulding, whistling, drove his team 

 through their lower halls. They did not go into 

 society in the village; they were quite well; they 

 had sons and daughters; they neither wove nor 

 spun; there was a sound as of suppressed hilarity. 



I take it for granted that the forester was only 

 saying a pretty thing of the birds, though I have 

 observed that it does sometimes annoy them when 



