IN BIRD LAND. 
3 
WAYSIDE RAMBLES. 
OOKING out of my study window one fair 
spring morning, I noticed a friend — a pro- 
fessional man — walking along the street, evidently 
taking his ‘‘constitutional.’’ Having reached the end 
of the brick pavement, he paused, glanced around 
a moment undecidedly, and then, instead of walk- 
ing out into the beckoning fields and woods, turned 
down another street which led into a thickly popu- 
lated part of the city. Surely, I mused, we are not 
all cast in the same mould. While he carefully 
avoided going beyond the suburbs and the beaten 
paths, as if afraid he might soil his polished shoes, 
I should have plunged boldly into the country, 
“across lots,” to find some sequestered nook or 
grass-grown by-way, “far from human _ neighbor- 
hood,” to hold undisturbed converse with Nature. 
My friend’s conduct, however, did not put me in 
a critical mood, but rather stirred some grateful 
reflections on the wise adaptation of all things in 
