74 IN THE HEMLOCKS. 



vrord of condolence or encouragement to the dis- 

 tressed pair. I have often noticed among birds this 

 Bhow of sympathy, — if indeed it be sympathy, and 

 not merely curiosity, or desire to be forewarned oi 

 the approach of a common danger. 



An hour afterward I approach the place, find aU 

 Btill, and the mother bird upon the nest. As I draw 

 Dear she seems to sit closer, her eyes growing large 

 with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She 

 keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, 

 when she flutters away as at first. In the brief in- 

 terval the remaining egg has hatched, and the two 

 little nestlings lift their heads without being jostled 

 or overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week 

 afterward and they were flown away, — so brief is 

 the infancy of birds. And the wonder is that they 

 escape, even for this short time, the skunks and 

 minks and muskrats that abound here, and that have 

 a decided partiality for such tidbits. 



I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now 

 threading an obscure cow-path or an overgrown 

 wood-road ; now clambering over soft and decayed 

 logs, or forcing my way through a net-work of briers 

 and hazels ; now entering a perfect bower of wild- 

 cherry, beech, and soft-maple ; now emerging into a 

 little grassy lane, golden with buttercups or white 

 with daisies, or wading waist-deep in the red rasp- 

 berry-bushes. 



Whir ! whir ! whir ! and a brood of half-grown 

 partridges start up like an explosion, a few pacei 



