AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 81 



Little brook sing a song 

 Of a leaf that sailed along 

 Down the golden braided center of your current swift and strong 

 And a dragon-fly that lit 

 On the tilting rim of it, 

 And rode away and wasn't scared a bit. " 



Further down the little brook, two " damsel-flies, " lady-like editions 

 of the common dragon-fly, tilt daintly on a waving, graceful leaf of a 

 water iris, their blue and green iridescence glinting in the sunlight. 

 But these " graceful demoiselles " are adrift, for a touch of scarlet on 

 their wings betokens them members of the general Hertarina, who 

 usually dwell in more exposed waters. 



In the shadow of some luxuriant maiden-hair ferns, dwell several 

 quaint blossom stalksof belated but bewitching blue-bells which have 

 artistically dipped their cerulean bells in some dainty rose pot, perhaps 

 in commemoration of the fair Scottish Queen whose sweetest joy was 

 in the sunny land of France. Below them grow worlds of amethystine 

 violets which the blue bells arabesque in dainty fret-work of contrast- 

 ing color. How Thoreau would have delighted in all these blues, such 

 a devotee he was of the cerulean shade, which fairly tints his writings 

 at times. How he delighted in the feathered-folk of his favorite color^ 

 the Bluebirds and Indigo Buntings. Now Ruskin revels in scarlet, and 

 says that in a delicately gradated shade, it is the lovliest of all pure 

 colors, but in this nook, only the gleaming Tanagers and Eglantine 

 could supply his artistic sense. But while I am absorbed in these 

 glories of color and of life, the song of praise has been gradually 

 changed to a vesper hymn. One by one the jewel lights are going out. 

 Gradually the sun is drifting to his splendid castle in the .West. The 

 moment is fled. 



