142 A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 



gray specimen, sitting motionless in the best 

 of lights. " Look at me," he seemed to say. 

 "I am no olive-back. My cheeks are not 

 sallow." On the same clay, here and in 

 another place, I saw white-throated sparrows. 

 Their presence at this late hour was a great 

 surprise, and suggested the possibility of 

 their breeding somewhere in the Carolina 

 mountains, though I am not aware that such 

 an occurrence has ever been recorded. An- 

 other recollection of this path is of a snow- 

 white milkweed (^Asclepias variegata)^ — 

 white with the merest touch of purple to set 

 it off, — for the downright elegance of which 

 I was not in the least prepared. The queen 

 of all milkweeds, surely. 



After nightfall the air grew loud with the 

 cries of batrachians and insects, an interest- 

 ing and novel chorus. On my first evening 

 at the hotel I was loitering up the road, with 

 frequent auditory pauses, thinking how full 

 the world is of unseen creatures which find 

 their day only after the sun goes down, when 

 in a woody spot I heard behind me a sound 

 of footsteps. A woman was close at my 

 heels, fetching a pail of water from the 

 spring. I remarked upon the many voices. 



