68 BY-WAYVS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
new. You will understand how it was recalled 
by the trifling incident above recorded. 
My way lay due east for nearly a mile, with 
the meadow-larks whistling in the fields on my 
right, and the woodpeckers chattering on the 
fence-posts to the left. The woodpeckers 
(those fellows half white and half black and 
hooded in scarlet) had just arrived from the 
South, and appeared overjoyed with their sur- 
roundings. They looked very clean in their 
shining jet coats and snow under-garments. 
A toll-gate stood at the end of the lane. I 
whirled noiselessly through it before the wo- 
man who kept it could decide whether my 
vehicle was down on her list, and ran over a 
little hill just as the sun cleared the tree-tops 
in the east. A small boy was riding a big- 
wheeled plough, to which three fine sleek 
horses were working abreast. The musty 
odor of the fresh-turned soil was very pleasant. 
Blue-birds were dropping. into the new furrow 
behind the plough to get the larva of various 
insects exposed there. Two sparrow-hawks 
were wheeling in small circles, some fifty feet 
high, watching for field-mice, or possibly intent 
on taking one of the blue-birds unaware. 
There was a worm-fence on one side of the 
road and the corners were literally carpeted 
with wild blue-violets. What a pity it is that 
these beautiful flowers have no perfume! ‘The 
lack seems to take a great deal from their 
value when one discovers it. It is almost like 
finding that a very musical song has no mean- 
ing in its sonorous phrases. I now had some 
stiff work going up a hill on a curve, and then 
came a smooth bit of coasting, followed by a 
short stretch through level heavy sand ; then 
