96 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



was startled to hear a baby whippoorwill practising 

 his melancholy tale on the hillside above the house, 

 where no doubt his mother had lost him the night be- 

 fore. He had " stayed out all night," and knew no 

 better than to sing in the daytime. I suppose his 

 mother had not yet taught him when and how to sing, 

 for he could only lisp now, saying " ' T is-so-still ! ' T is- 

 so-still ! " It sounded very odd at noon, although it 

 was dark and rainy. I searched through the daisied 

 meadow for him, and found that he was a full-sized 

 bird, — too large to be lisping such baby notes, though 

 not old enough to find the way to the twilight woods 

 alone. Perhaps he was backward in his singing les- 

 sons, and his mother had punished him by leaving him 

 to practise all day, when other birds of the night were 

 drowsing under the shelter of old logs in the deep 

 wood. So he sang on and on, at intervals, all the 

 afternoon in the rain, out on the grassy hilltop. 



I found a bobolink's nest low in the swamp meadow, 

 near where there were many busy ** Roberts of Lin- 

 coln." Their rich, energetic, gladsome song was very 

 contagious, and brightened many an hour when I was 

 housed, or sat on the porch, watching the storms come 

 up in the north and west. 



Mount CEta is one of the foothills of the Dome, lying 

 just west of the Domelet. The Hoosac glides around 

 its " dug-away " base, passing through the narrowest 

 portion of the valley near the Massachusetts State Line. 

 This pass is often called the " Golden Gate," likened 

 to the Pass of Thermopylae, among the mountains of 



