A Book on Birds 



Notwithstanding his impetuousness, how- 

 ever, he is certainly a beauty; and I hke 

 him none the less for the way in which he 

 is beginning to come right into my town 

 itself with increasing famiharity almost 

 ever3n;vhere. 



I recently met with more of these birds in 

 one place than I ever before saw in a single 

 afternoon. It was immediately following 

 a severe thunderstorm which caught my 

 car and held it up for a half hour near 

 the top of Skippack hill. 



The approach of this storm — seen from 

 this eminence, with its angry, low-lying 

 clouds rent by great flashes of lightning 

 and its dense sheets of driving rain — was 

 a most magnificent and awe-inspiring spec- 

 tacle; and the down-pour when it reached 

 us was tremendous while it lasted, flood- 

 ing all the roads and turning every rut into 

 a rivulet. 



But in a short half-hour the sun came 

 out more brightly than ever; and by the 

 time I arrived at Tanglewood lane, some 

 two miles farther on (a rendezvous which 



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