WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



The country people say that the clear, sweetly 

 whistled call so often heard in wet woods these 

 days is the cry of this tiny red innocent, but it is 

 not. That fiutelike note is the call of the toad, 

 who is late in his wooing. 



Here comes hopping that exquisite of his race, 

 the wood-frog, dressed in buff and black. He is 

 done with his honeymoon and its troubles, and, 

 a bachelor again for the nonce, is travelling con- 

 tentedly back to the dry uplands, free of responsi- 

 bility and the pricks of either love-longing or con- 

 science. A blue butterfly flutters near him, and 

 then a larger one, chestnut and black, wavers 

 down from somewhere, whereupon the blue one 

 rises and drifts away sidewise before an invisible 

 breeze, showing hauteur in every motion. The 

 light is just right to be reflected from the bottom 

 of the creek, where it is perhaps eighteen inches 

 deep near shore, and I see a pair of perch at work 

 upon their nests. They — 



But here! This won't do. It is not my day 

 for observation. I don't want to study. I want 

 only to feel, and — bless me! it is lunch- time, and 

 — I must really have been avsleep half an hour! 



