50 THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. 



to hear in July the wood-sparrow, and returning by 

 a stumpy, shallow pond, I am sure to find the water- 

 thrush. 



Only one locality within my range seems to pos- 

 sess attractions for all comers. Here one may study 

 almost the entire ornithology of the State. It is a 

 rocky piece of ground, long ago cleared, but now fast 

 relapsing into the wildness and freedom of nature 

 and marked by those half-cultivated, half-wild feat- 

 ures which birds and boys love. It is bounded on 

 two sides by the village and highway, crossed at va- 

 rious points by carriage-roads, and threaded in all di- 

 rections by paths and by-ways, along which soldiers, 

 laborers, and truant school-boys are passing at all 

 hours of the day. It is so far escaping from the axe 

 and the bush-hook as to have opened communication 

 with the forest and mountain beyond by straggling 

 lines of cedar, laurel, and blackberry. The ground 

 is mainly occupied with cedar and chestnut, with an 

 undergrowth, in many places, of heath and bramble. 

 The chief feature, however, is a dense growth in the 

 centre, consisting of dogwood, water-beech, swamp 

 ash, alder, spice-bush, hazel, etc., with a net- work, o 

 Bmilax and frost-grape. A little zigzag stream, the 

 draining of a swamp beyond, which passes through 

 this tangle-wood, accounts for many of its features 

 and productions, if not for its entire existence. Birds 

 that are not attracted by the heath or the cedar and 

 chestnut, are sure to find some excuse for visiting this 

 miscellaneous growth in the centre. Most of th« 



