7a BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
blooms, amongst which bees and other insects 
were glancing and humming, and a number of 
small yellow green fly-catchers were actively 
engaged in a restless pursuit of their proper 
food. I gathered a big bunch of these odorous 
plum-sprays and bound it fast to the handle of 
my brake lever so that I could have with me 
in my further journeying the fruity breath of 
the wild orchard. 
Running down a long rut-furrowed slope, and 
then over a damp flat in a cool, shady hollow, I 
came to a nasty little stream sweeping through 
a narrow bog. Here I called a halt for con- 
sultation, ‘That mud looked deep and treacher- 
ous. I saw where a wagon had been pried 
out of it with fence rails. ‘There was nothing 
to do but get across, however, so I fell to 
work, carrying pieces of logs, rails, fallen 
boughs, etc., until I had made a quite respect- 
able corduroy bridge, over which I pushed my 
machine with perfect safety; then I had to 
lift it over a large log that had fallen across 
the road. In fact I did not mount again for a 
quarter of a mile, at the end of which I found 
myself at the source of the road, where it ap- 
peared that I was caught fast between a huge 
old red barn and a weather-beaten but com- 
fortable looking farm-house. 
A brawny, grizzled man with a hammer and 
monkey-wrench was tinkering with a disabled 
plough. I approached him cap in hand, and 
mopping the perspiration from my face. He 
immediately showed a deep but quasi-con- 
temptuous interest in the mechanism of the 
tricycle. I plied him with questions as to his 
crop-prospects, and was soon on easy terms 
with him. I gota drink out of a sweet old 
