22 TRAMPS WITH AN ENTHUSIAST. 



artistic variety that makes of tlie little tree a 

 thing of beauty. When it puts out new leaves 

 in the early summer, and every twig is tij^ped 

 with light green, it is particularly lovely, as if 

 in bloom. 



How different the mathematical precision of 

 the spruce, which might indeed have been laid 

 out upon geometrical lines ! When a baby 

 spruce has but three twigs, one will stand stiffly 

 upright, as if it bore the responsibility of up- 

 holding the spruce traditions of the ages, while 

 the other twigs will duly spread themselves at 

 nearly right angles, leaving their brother to rep- 

 resent the aspirations of the family, and thus 

 even in infancy reproduce in miniature the full- 

 grown, formal tree. 



When, after waiting some time in vain for the 

 birds to appear, we examined the nest before us, 

 we found that it held two thrush eggs and one 

 of the cowbird. The impertinence of this dis- 

 reputable bird in thrusting her plebeian off- 

 spring upon the divine songster, to rear at the 

 expense of her own lovely brood, was not to 

 be tolerated. The dirty speckled egg looked 

 strangely out of place among the gems that be- 

 longed to the nest, and I removed it, careful not 

 to touch nest or eggs. So pertinacious is this par- 

 asite upon bird society that my friend says that 

 in Illinois, where the wood thrush represents the 



