Professional and Amateur. 123 



country. How vividly I can recall delightfully lazy 

 days when I have clambered into the mow and, rest- 

 ing at full length on the hay, looked upward and 

 marked the flight of the barn-swallows that came 

 and went through some knot-holes in the wall ! The 

 bright, brassy sunshine out of doors entered here 

 only as great bars of light and did not dispel the 

 gloom that was the charm of the place. I could 

 see nothing very distinctly, and the nests against 

 the rafters had long since been abandoned, but the 

 birds still came and went and twittered as lively in 

 the shades of the mow as in the glare of the fields. 

 Gay messengers from the outside world, they brought 

 me only such tidings as I wished ; they humored 

 my whims and so endeared themselves. It is not 

 strange that I still go into barns to look for the 

 nests of these charming birds, and, seeing them, 

 even if it be winter, I hear again the merry twit- 

 ter, I recall the pleasant tidings brought me years 

 ago, — the fancies never realized, — and I feel the 

 warmth of June, though standing in the sunshine 

 of January. Birds, like bird-songs, should be valued 

 for their suggestiveness rather than for any intrinsic 

 merit. 



While wasting time one pleasant May morning 

 with men who dabble in archaeology, and looking 

 for traces of Indians that, when found, could not 

 possibly tell us anything new about these people, I 

 was startled by a whir and flapping of wings that 

 seemed directed towards me. I looked around in a 

 dazed way, but could see nothing, and then again 



